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JM^?^TJ^/TFP- 



WILLIAM D. OWEN. 






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CHICAGO, ILL.: 

NORTHERN PUBLISHING H O U vS E , 

1SS3. 



F^ir-r/ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

LEWIS A. GASAWAY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



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The subjects upon which this book treats lie very close to the human 
heart. Every one, without reference to the life calling, is possessed of 
a like hope and desire ; all want to succeed in the world, and all feel 
that the experience of others may be of benefit to them. But, it seems 
almost impossible to add anything materially to a subject upon which 
the largest minds of ancient and modern days have lavished their 
maturest thought. Yet, the very surfeit of these writings has seemed 
to make the present work a necessity. For as those that are in search 
of good advice can not read all that is offered them, and are liable to 
bewilderment among a multitude of counselors, it has appeared to the 
author that he was doing wisely and well in recasting and compiling 
the thoughts that have gone before, and drawing upon the experience 
and example of later years for what might appear best adapted to the 
needs of the passing day. 

The biographies are given to commend and illustrate the views 
enunciated — they contain the very marrow of the lives of these illus- 
trous men — who-are, indeed, fit examples for our American youth, for 
they possessed the genius of industry, and in them we see how work 
wins and manhood grows. 

This book is sent forth in fervent hope that it may give courage to 
some faltering hearts, direct some seeking the right way, and inspire 
ambition in not a few to be equals of the men whose lives are herein 
set forth as examples. We have not directed you along some lonely 
impossible road, but show you a way where patient industry and care- 
ful thought will bring you to one of life's prizes, and will set it with 
the jewels of happiness and contentment. 




THE MEMORY OF 

Br. 3. 3- Baujlmgs, 

THE PATRON OF MY CHILDHOOD, THE COUNSELOR 

OF MY YOUTH, AND THE FRIEND 

OF MY MANHOOD, I 

DEDICATE THIS 

BOOK. 

TO HIM I OWE MUCH 

FOR WHATEVER OF SUCCESS 

I HAVE ATTAINED IN THIS LIFE 

THE Al'THOR. 




yAll men not created tor the same calling — Every man has a fighting cliance in 
life — Greatness not necessary' to success — Elements that are necessary — 
^'ictory through toil — A bad beginning often has a good ending^Genius 
versus life-long %vorkers-*^Slow boys — Ciesar, Shakspeare, Webster — Success 
after failure — Disraeli, Lord Eldon — Fortunes accumulated after fifty years of 
age — Peabody, Vanderbilt — Day laborers who waited on success and saw it 
grow — Cook, Yelford, Hugh Miller, Elihu Burritt — Men fail because they 
won't work and wait — Sit still and die — Too much haste — Mushrooms grow- 
up in a night-^very man can excel in his vocation — Plenty of room up stairs 
— thoroughness needed — Industry is genius — Work wins. 



P'^Ljx^icaf (suffure. 



The WTCstler and the philosopher — Giants once regarded as divine beings — Build- 
ing up the mind — Neglecting the health — Education a mania — Outdoor sports 
— Muscle of the American women — Razor-faced people — Shattered nerves — 
Being a good animal — Study and dyspepsia — The stomach decides whether 
you can be happy or not — Self-repair — Good playing constitutions — Good 
workinsr constitutions. 



Elcoqom\/ o^ ©Jime. 



The man habituallv behind time never gets along well — Military men noted for 
being on time — You can save little pieces of time and make days out of them, 



CONTENTS. 

as you save dimes and make dollars — How to become a good historian of the 
United States by reading during your idle moments — Working by rule — Value 
of it — What the spare minutes in a year will do — Life is measured by what is 
done in it. 



Is anything of value due to luck? — Failures charged to bad luck — Belief in luck — 
Power of circumstances to mould us — They are made to be but stepping stones 
to men of metal — No great work ever accomplished solely by fortune — Wrong 
to despise trifles — Bad luck can't stand against pluck and wit^It's a long lane 
that has no turn — It is luck to have good sense — Bad luck to neglect duty, to 
be extravagant or intemperate — Pluck sticks to business, fights misfortunes, 
and gets rich. 



(^^oox^ing a ^^ocatior2. 

Be what nature intended you for — Life has no easy places — Too many make a mis- 
take in choosing their life employment — Impossible to do more than one thing 
well — Great abilities not necessary — What do you naturally incline to.' — Better 
be a success as a fish peddler than a failure as a merchant — A diploma never 
made a man — It pays to take time enough to get the right start — Honor your 
business; let it have a man behind it. 



<Sj\ 



im. 



Having a worthy aim — Each man capable of great things in some part of his 
sphere — Palissy had an aim inside of his sphere, and how he pursued it — Even 
great talents must be directed to a single object — The aim must be felt to be 
a something that needs to be done — Why the sons of the ricli are usually 
failures — Duty well done is true greatness — Youth often injured by early 
success — Put the aim high — Hindrances are God's helps. 



©>//ifP-poa:)er. 



The will is the sovereign of the man — Will-power indispensable to success — A 
determined will more valuable than gifts of genius — It finds a way or makes 



VON TENTS 7 

it Wishing is not willing — Failure sometimes helps the will — Intoxicants 

destroy will-power — Great call for strong wills in our competitions — Inhuman 
treatment gave Frederick the Great his vast will-power — Places where man- 
hood is developed. 



Uurnlng poiafx^. 



Watching the turn of things — What five minutes may contain — Confidence is lost 
in chance work — Chance only a place where previous training may act— Great 
results from trifles — Must know your chance — Rising in the world — Keep 
your wits at your fingers' ends— Training by adversity— Must strike while the 
iron is hot — The lack of tact — Close observer — Needs a long head and always 
to be on the alert — Two ways of blowing your own trumpet — Being master of 
the situation— Sharp practice will in the end bring ruin — Never underrate 
your abilities— Merit must not expect to succeed without industry- — Reverence 
yourself —World is calling for men— Value of disciplined talent — Be on hand 
when a crisis takes place — Full-orbed men — Act at the salient moment. 



©ngli^afltij. 

The genius of originality — You are expected to do the unexpected — Individuality 
— Be ready to assume responsibility — Doing things your own way — The age 
of the specialist — Certain indispensables — Chances to do something — The will 
and the way — The unfortunate brilliants — Having common sense — Micaw- 
bers — All men not equals — American boys — You will never know yourself 
until you are put on trial. 



oKBraftam Tsincofn. 



His humble Kentucky home— Removal to Indiana— His mother's gentle nature — 
Her death — Burial — Gathering strength for his life-fight— His moral integrity 
— John Hampden — Phenominal men — Adverse fate — The Bible, >^sop's Fables 
and Pilgrim's Progress, his wealth — Self-education — Accepting nature's invi- 
tations — A new market — Six feet four inches — Lincoln's trousers and Mrs. 
Miller's rails — Floating to New Orleans — A clerk at New Salem — " Honest 
Abe" — Captain Lincoln — His "national debt — A post-master, his hat the 
office — A life of expedients — To the legislature — Meeting of- Lincoln and 



CONTENTS. 

Douglas — First anti-slavery vote — Garibaldi — Henry — Garrison — Giddings — 
Law practice — Eloquence — Coukl work only on the side of right — The trust 
of juries- — "Uncle Sam's" "balance" — Marriage — Clay his political idol — 
Lincoln at Ashland — Congress — Illinois the battle ground of slavery — Lincoln 
and Douglas champions — A prophetic speech— In Cooper Institute — Captures 
the metropolis — Nominated and elected president — Conspiracies — Inaugurated 
— Plodding the moral pathway through the war — Re-election the seal of a 
people's approval — Fall of Richmond — Assassination. 



The core of our character — Inglorious Miltons — Assert yourself — Men who forced 
the world to hear them — Bad influence of debt — Above corruption, wealth or 
glory, be right — How to get out all there is in yourself — Never doubt yourself 
— Majority of men rise without wealth or education — Good native ability 
pushed, is of more value than gilt-edged qualities that are not asserted. 



<Kerir>/ (^Pqlj. 



A mother's influence better than lordly lineage — Two characters often displayed 
by children — Clay an ordinary child — Becomes a clerk — The town boys laugh 

at him Counsel from seli-made men. — He refuses to do wrong — Was quick to 

pick up information — Decides to study law — He reached up for his f]-iends — 
Admitted to the bar at 20 — Settles in the West — The debating club speech — 
Defends a murderer— A close student — He was the same with peasant and 
prince — He was a gentleman. 



Jfenry (sPatj, 



(ConiinueD.) 

In the legislature— Grows popular— Triumphs over his rivals— Elected to the 
United States senate— The father of internal improvements— Advocates the 
war with England— His services at the Ghent conference— Re-enters the 
senate— Advocates fostering home industries— Candidate for president— The 
great compromise— The aged statesman once more in the fray— His eloquence 
— Marshall's tribute. 



CONTENTS. 9 

Things needed by the young — Brains called for — Head must help the hands — 
Intelligent workmen are the captains of industry — A college course not 
essential to an education — Perseverance is — The littleness of an "if" — Value 
of books — Hope for one that fails, but struggle on — Pure metal in men — 
Getting a trade — Difficulties often our best friends — Working your own jtuft". 



Abram Garfield's death — The poverty of his family — James the roust-about in the 
clearing — He wants to be a pirate— Becomes interested in a debating club — 
How orators are made — Starts to sea, but ships on the canal — Home once 
more and sick — Determines to obey his mother and get an education — His 
miserable poverty at the seminary — A school teacher — ^Joins the chuich — 
Atten-ds Hiram college — Begins to preach — Practices extemporaneous speak- 
ing — At Williams college — A green youth — His wonderful ability to study. 



^ameA ©K. Syarfiefcj. 



(eoniinueD.) 

Editor of the College Quarterly — Becoming interested in politics — A professor at 
Hiram — Established as a preacher — Chosen president of Hiram — His breadth 
of mind — Reads law — A leader in the state senate — His patriotism — Chicka- 
mauga — A major-general — Elected to congress — Defies the convention at time 
of his second candidacy, and is nominated for liis pluck — His immortal speecli 
at the time of Lincoln's assassination — Rapid growth of his popularitv — A 
constant -"-orker — The splendor of his fame — Elected president — The dawn of 
peace. 



©ecix^Ion. 

Life beset with difficulties — Value of being able to comprehend a situation at a 
glance, and deciding on the spot — Faculty can be trained — Indecision means 
failure — Even the words may be half battles — Circumstances are to be turned 
to advantage — Making the best out of mistakes — Men of iron decision usually 
quiet — Determination following decision — Put yourself on trial. 



10 CONTENTS. 

^fep^en ©K. 5i)ougfa6. 

The majority of America's leaders self-made — Stephen's expectations blighted — 
Strikes out for himself — Becomes a cabinet-maker — What may be done in a 
trade — Broken health — Reads law — A born politician — Twenty years old, he 
starts West to grow up with the country — Sick and a wanderer — Teaches 
school — Opens a law office — Makes his first political speech — Turns a conven- 
tion of democrats into Jackson democrats and becomes the "Little Giant" — 
Organizes the party in the state. 



lep'^en (aK. ©ougfaA. 



(ConcinueD.) 

Defeated for congress — Appointed a supreme judge — Captures Brigham Young 
and the apostles — At the age of 27 comes within three votes of being elected 
to the United States senate — In congress — The elements of a popular orator — 
Defends Jackson — Elected to the senate — Missouri compromise — Popular 
sovereignty — His inllexible will — The great debate — Defeated for president — 
His patriotic advice to president Lincoln — An incident. 



£)erxi)e^erance. 



Robert the Bruce — The gift of continuance — Labor is not a curse — Perseverance 
must be directed by intelligence — Working by starts — More difference in the 
energy of men than in their talents — How some people manage to get abused 
— Secret of waiting — Toiling for a lifetime — Genius is patience — Conquering 
lying abed — Hard work will triumph over caste — Tenterden a barber's boy and 
became lord chief justice — Ruined by a clerkship— Have a little business of 
your own — Eminence seldom lies over an easy road — Orators not born — 'I he 
beforehand drudgery of the great orators — Nearly all successful men ha\ e 
gone through an amount of study which of itself was more work than most 
men perform in a lifetime — Unwearied patience — Make a needle out of a 
crowbar — The many who fail for never learning the secret there is in hard 
work. 



r^o6ert G. Isee. 

Illustrious parentage— At college— Habits of the boy— Enters West Point— Index 



fUJ\'TEyTS. 1 1 

of character — Love of home — His piety — Influence of religion — His honesty 
— A lieutenant — In Mexico — General Scott compliments him — Captures old 
John Brown — Secession — With his State or Nation, which? — Goes with his 
State — A Confederate general— The Richmond campaign — His estimate of 
Stonewall Jackson. 



Po6ert &. Isee. 

(ConTinueD.) 

Some men bound to succeed — Lee wedded to his business — Wins the confidence 
of the army — Hatred of military trappings — Trifles — McClellan's chance — 
The Confederacy stayed in Lee — Fredericksburg — Gettysburg — Lives with 
the soldiers — Grant's tactics — The South desires him to assume dictatorship — 
Appamattox — Feelings towards the Union — Elected president of Washington 
College — Brilliant success — Illness — " Hill must come up " — Death. 



S^u/irie/j eK'a'Bit/, 

Nature is no more powerful to control a man than his settled habits — Why there 
are no bankruptcies in Holland — Moralitv of habits — How habits grow on us 
Our success in a measure depends on our habits — The value of industry — 
Why one of loose habits is always an imprudent person — Men who are indus- 
trious by force of habit get on well — Habits of successful professional men — 
Power of a determined purpose in forming habits — This one thing I do — 
Habit of controlling self — Talking too much — Bad eftects of haste — The 
company we keep — Slipshod workers — Punctuality — Crowd your business — 
Method and despatch — Habits once formed run themselves. 



S^ux^inex^x^ ©ruiLgeru. 

Impracticable men — Dry details — Great workers have not despised the drudgery 
of their business — Business won through immense work — To become dis- 
tinguished is to toil — Genius is protracted patience — Never neglect any thing — 
Princes in business have won by ceaseless toil — No easy chairs — An equiva- 
lent must be given for results — Only weak men spurn little things — No royal 
road — A march through mud, and din, and toil. 



12 CONTENTS. 

qK. ©I. (i)i'ea:)arf. 

Mercantile failures — Elements of a business man — Avoid changes — A. T. Stewart 
as a model — Heaven helps those who help themselves — His consecration to his 

business — A time and a place for everything — Hard times — Far sighted 

Never borrowed — His masterly economy — His honesty — Discharging clerks 

His immense sales — Acquires a vast fortune — The merchant prince. 



^eff-r^eP 



lance. 



The key that unlocks difficulties — The secret of most failures — Self-reliance like a 
ridge-pole — Wliat to teacli the boys — The way one can make up for lack of 
ability — Looking up — Importance of thinking well of our work — Value of 
ambition — Hurry as an evidence of weakness — Don't lean on others — Men 
risen from the ranks — Bonaparte at Austerlitz. 



Kentucky boy with grit — At Salem mill— -Buys Radford's store — Sells it to 
Abraham Lincoln — Abraham Lincoln, Richard Yates, William G. Greene — 
Git that little feller a warm supper — A natural bias for business — Greene a 
born money getter — His self-reliance — Goes to the Black Hawk war — Quits 
college with forty dollars more than he entered with — Keeps his expenses 
below his income — Economy is a great source of wealth — Steadily refuses to 
speculate —Lincoln helps him beat a gambler — He begins to think. 



©N^IfPiarT] g;. (S^reene. 

(concinueo.) 

Certain times favorable to good resolutions — Where the roads of life fork — Every 
life has a turning point — Begins business in Memphis on $125 — In three years 
cleared $4,000, but decides to follow his natural promptings and goes onto a 
farm — How he farms — Farming a science to be studied — Requires biains to 
make monev on a farm — The farmer of the future — The farmer the corner 
stone of the world's commerce — Drive business for all it is worth — Makes 
some monev every year — From poverty to $600,000. 




'^\i44i4)i ^ aIow ^Mwfi 





^ijpj]f;s^ ^ ^L'Ov/ -qH^Q^/xfi. 



t-t— "G-'^JS'J^J; 



He that believeth shall not make haste. — Isaiah xxz'iii, i6. 

No man can end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior. 

— Sitiiiiy Smil/t. 

Success in most things depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed. 

— Moutesqiiteu. 




^^mn^ of ]i^<k^!i^?|. 




E see a difference in the abilities of men as plainly 
as we see their faces are not alike. One man has 
been cut out by nature for one calling, and his neigh- 
bor for another ; but varied as arc these vocations, no one 
need go to the grave with the sad confession that his life has 
been a failure. The world gives every man a fighting 
chance ; and the " Genius of Industry " hopes to help those 
who have faith in the value of honest, old fashioned, hard 
work. We so seldom see one step to fame and wealth in a 
day. We ought to feel that for us '' there is no excellence 
without great labor." To succeed in life we do not need 
greatness so much as we need industry and the ability to 
wait. To be able to continue patiently in well doing is the 
very best kind of genius. In each community we find that 
the honors and riches of the mechanical ci'afts, of the farm 
and the professional life have been won by men distinguished 
rather for sound judgment and close application than for 
brilliancy. Their success has been a slow growth, but they 
have succeeded, and at the close of life that means every- 
thins 



16 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

To you who will make the trial we offer a helping hand 
along this pathway. Our borders may not alwa}-s be 
strewn with roses, we may not be the equal of some of the 
friends about us, but we will go on believing that work will 
win and manhood grow. 

Men, like vessels, are thrown on to the sea of life, ditier- 
ing in construction and capacity. All can not carr}' the 
same burden, nor ride safel}' through the same storms. 
Some are very humble, feeling that they must be contented, 
like fishing smacks, to sail in shallow waters. Others are 
like ships of a thousand tons, fitted to carry the commerce 
of nations ; while here and there is one that is undoubtedly 
designed for a flag ship. 

Our purpose in this volume is to examine the reasons of 
these inequalities ; to remind the successful of the responsi- 
bilities attending their position, and of the necessity for 
continued effort if they would continue to prosper ; and to 
show others that patient endeavor, if reasonabl}^ well 
directed, will most assuredly achieve gratifying results ; in 
a word, that perseverance, rather than the fitful efforts of 
natural ability, however great, is the key to success, hi 
discussing the elements that enter into a successful life, we 
can not hope to consider all details. The world is. scarcely 
large enough to contain such a book. Only a few points of 
vital interest will be taken up — those without which no man 
can hope to triumph. 

It is said some men succeed in defiance of all rules. 
They ma}', in spite of all rules recognized by the mass of 
men, for the mass is unobservant ; but, visible or invisible, 
rules there are, governing with imperious sway, which no 
man who hopes for preferment ma)* disobe}-. Inflexibility 
is a characteristic of the laws of business. Circumstances 



SUCCESS A SLOW GROWTH. 17 

may be overruled, but the ordinances of trade are sure and 
changeless. He who violates them must certainly pay the 
penalty ; but this is not more sure than that victory is 
wrought out by toil b}' those who accept its stern exactions. 
Let a man, then, who would win in the race of life, put 
himself fairly and squarely on the track, to begin with, and 
let him be sure that he can be reconciled to whatever prize 
awaits him. Having so far settled it, what remains for him 
to do is to adjust himself to his surroundings. 

Flying at our mast-head is this motto : Success a slow 
GROWTH. The introduction to the problem we have before 
us relates itself to Time. This is a factor which to despise 
is to ruin our work in its very inception. He who would 
command enduring success must spend long, weary j^ears 
either in careful preparation or arduous struggle. More 
men fail in life for lack of persistent effort than for lack of 
genius. 

It is an established fact that the majority of those young 
men who start in life under the most favorable auspices fail 
of making their mark. The very character of success is 
such that it tends to paralyze their efforts. Success to an 
experienced man kindles perseverance, blowing energy to a 
white heat. But the novice, crowned with a few glories, 
finds in them a siren that lulls to sleep all his energies. It 
leads him into the delusion that he was born under a lucky 
star, and therefore the gods will care for him. Although 
we Americans boast so greatl}' about our individualit}', and 
reject positively the doctrine of fatalism, down deep in the 
heart there lurks a shadowy but potent impression that it is 
better to be born lucky than rich. There never was a 
greater fallacy. " Luck " is the prize of him who takes it. 



18 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

The word is the euphuism of the weak to excuse their 
weakness. 

Early achievements in business, in Hterature, or on the 
forum, certainly tell of unusual powers, and if the physical 
and mental organizations are well balanced and well pre- 
served, we may pretty safely prophesy of things yet to 
come. John Quinc}' Adams, when seven years old, was 
called into the presence of the famil}-, where he delivered a 
speech creditable to a lad of fourteen. You may call this 
precocity. But if so, it was attended by growth. Nor 
did he ever stop growth. Having won the title of " Old 
Man Eloquent," he died at an advanced age on the floor of 
Congress. Bonaparte, at school, on the field where the 
students had their snow forts, was the miniature of the 
general who led the phalanxes of France with success 
against the five coalitions of Austria. William Cullen 
Bryant, at the age of nineteen, wrote " Thanatopsis," a 
poem admired and quoted wherever literature is loved. 
After scattering immortal gems along his path for sixty-six 
years, at the age of eighty-two he sent forth the " Flood 
of Years," which for lofty imagery and superb diction has 
been excelled by no one, and rareh' equaled b}' himself Yet 
in the face of these illustrious examples of bright 3-outh 
and stalwart age, it is a fact that the majorit}' of brilliant 
young men soon fail, and are heard of no more. 

Persistence will tell against mere brilliancy. Many of 
the most famous men were not remarkable in their youth 
for anything but dullness. Julius Coesar was very ordinary 
in mind and aspiration. It was only after severe seasons of 
experience that he developed such capacity as enabled him 
to command unconquerable legions, and to become the 
world's type of an unbounded ambition. Hudibras was 



SUCCESS A SLOW GROWTH. 19 

accounted the wittiest book of the times, but Charles II 
pronounced its author a stupid blockhead. The brilliant 
Sheridan, in his bo}hood, was branded a hopeless dunce. 
Shakspeare, we are told, was prodigiously dull before he 
came to his teens. Martin Luther was such a blunderer at 
his books that he himself records fifteen whippings he 
received in one forenoon, foi^ failure in recitations, and 
although he denounces his teachers as tyrants, it does not 
appear that they were ever able to arouse his torpid mind. 
While at Mansfield he begged from door to door, possess- 
ing nothing but a musical voice and the scraps of food cast 
into his bag. A superstitious dread of what might come to 
pass drove him into religion, and in after years he said: 
" It was one of God's ways of making men out of beggars, 
as He made the world out of nothing." Daniel Webster 
was never head in his classes. Indeed, he was averse to 
study. He says that up to fifteen 3'ears of age the Friday 
evening declamation was his mortal dread. Patrick Henry 
was a shirk at work and a lout at study until after he was 
thirty. Beecher, with all his brilliancy and munificent gifts, 
was recognized as common at school, his dilatoriness in 
study and' love of fun being his most marked characteristics. 
Some minds are ai^oused to activity more slowl}' than 
others, just as some bodies are of slow physical growth. 
While it is not always true that early development 
involves earl}' decay, yet a late development is not to be 
regretted. It saves one from many stumblings and humb- 
lings. It is attended by less risks. It brings a no less val- 
uable life when it begins unfolding. The youthful mind 
may indeed be dormant, but to struggle as did Webster 
with the policies of a nation, or Bernard Palissy for an 
artistic effect, or Newton for a demonstration of the law of 



20 TEE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

gravitation, tliough it take a score of years to reach the 
result, gives a character, when it comes, that extends in all 
directions over the life of the discoverer. The mere publi- 
cation of Les Miserables did not give Hugo his reputation 
as a writer, nor did the battle of Waterloo make Welling- 
ton a great commander. Great works do not make great- 
ness; the}' only reveal it. Hugo had been a mighty 
thinker and rhetorician, and Wellington a might}' warrior, 
for many years. One is as truly great through the long 
years of labor he patiently puts forth to accomplish the end, 
as on the day he takes the world's diploma as a master. 
No man is great who has to stud}' tactics and prepare him- 
self after the battle-call has sounded. 

Rely not upon prestige or the help of friends for success. 
The day for that has passed. If you would win, you must 
win with your own clear head and resolute heart backing 
the nervous efforts of your own strong arm. Without 
these you will be dashed aside with a giant's stroke. Il 
some men you know came to the top without a struggle, 
don't you try it. The very fact that they have arisen 
proves them to have possessed energies unknown to you. 
It is one of the principles of justice, that only the industri- 
ous shall attain to permanent success. Ill-gained wealth 
easily departs. 

We have often thought it fortunate that youth fails to 
foresee the burdens before it. Take our boys as they enter 
school, their souls all aflame with educational desires, and 
point out to them the seven years' mental toil to be under- 
gone — the weary hours, the headaches, the mortifications 
and prostrations, the faggings and the fears — and one-half 
would hesitate to enter college. 

The pursuit and possession of success, after all, yield a 



SUCCESS A SLOW GROWTH. 21 

greater amount of happiness than any other earthly object. 
Love and labor are both barren without a summit toward 
which to climb. The mountain air of hope is crisp with 
the dews of endeavor, ascending with us step by step; and 
though we may be jagged by the pointed rocks, yet out of 
their crevices flows the balm that heals us. Disraeli affords 
a striking example of how much toil and endurance of fail- 
ure one must sometimes pa}' for eminence. He overcame 
more obstacles and worked harder for his "throne" than 
any living Englishman. Like many other great men, he 
reached success only through a series of failures. Fortu- 
nate is that man whom failure energizes. At the outset of 
his career he was considered a literary lunatic. His 
"Wondrous Tale of Alroy " and ''Revolutionary Epic" 
were regarded with derision. Like a true man, he was 
stung by this disappointment, 3'et he worked on the more 
assiduously, and " Sibyl " and " Tancred " began to display 
the sterling metal of which he was made. His ambition 
prompted him to seek the forum. But here, too, his first 
effort was a failure. His opening speech in the House of 
Commons was pronounced " more screaming than an Adel- 
phi farce." Conceived in elevated thought and composed 
in ambitious diction, " Every sentence was hailed with loud 
laughter." "Hamlet played as a comedy were nothing to 
it." But he closed' that effort with a sentence which once 
more revealed the man. Writhing under the jeers with 
which his studied eloquence had been received, he shook his 
long, bony fingers at the House, and vehemently exclaimed : 
" I have begun several times many things, and have suc- 
ceeded in them at last. I will sit down now, but the time 
will come when 3'ou will hear me." Once more he set him- 
self to work. He carefully unlearned his faults, closely 



22 THE GENIU3 OF INDUSTRY. 

studied the character of his hearers, practiced night and day 
all the arts of speech, and industriously filled his mind with 
constitutional law and parliamentary knowledge.- Patient!}' 
he labored. His prophecy was fulfilled. The House laughed 
with him, instead of at him. He was one of the most 
ornate and effective of parliamentary speakers. Crowded 
galleries and floor hung breathless on his words. The peo- 
ple now eagerl}' seek after his books, and his manuscripts 
command almost fabulous prices. He became one of the 
most popular men in the nation. Disraeli will pass into the 
history of England "The Great Premier." 

The illustrious John Scott, afterward Lord Eldon, climbed 
slowly to distinction. Pie rose at four every morning, and 
studied till late at night, binding a wet towel round his 
head to keep himself awake. After four years of waiting, 
his opportunity came. Engaged on a case, he urged a 
legal point in opposition to the advice of his attorney and 
client, and lost the case. He appealed to the House of 
Lords, and Lord Thurlow reversed the decision. As he 
left the Plouse, a leading solicitor tapped him on the shoul- 
der, and said: "Young man, your bread and butter's cut 
for life." In about ten years from his call to the bar, he 
was on the road to its highest honors. 

Through this same long-toiling process has come the 
majority of our great journalists. Greeley, Brooks and Bry- 
ant went to their beds at night as thoroughly tired as the men 
who worked their old-fashioned hand-presses. These men 
have shone in journalism; but in this, like ever}- profession, 
it takes hard work to put the gloss on. James Gordon 
Bennett issued the first number of the Ne-u Tork Herald 
from a cellar on Ann Street. It was a poverty-stricken 
cellar, and the editor's writing-desk was a board stretched 



SUCCESS A SLOW GROWTH. '^3 

across the head of a barrel. Bennett was poor and 
unknown. He was without patronage, and had no back- 
ers. He was his own clerk, reporter, editor and errand 
bo}'; he wrote all the articles that appeared in the Herald., 
wrote many of the advertisements, and superintended the 
selling of the paper. The office was without comforts, and 
the editor's only hope of success rested on his indomitable 
confidence in the world's justice — that (he man -voiild be 
recognized loho continued to do Ids luork ivcll. Few papers 
have been called upon to engage in such battles as the 
Herald has passed through. Its editor nev^r once relaxed 
his vast energies; he raised the little obscure penny sheet 
by gradual steps for inore than a generation, until it came 
to be recognized as the most enterprising paper in the 
world, and a power in the land. Mr. Bennett died at an 
advanced age, leaving the magnificent Herald building and 
his own colossal fortune as a standing monument of what 
may be accomplished by an active purpose in a life-time. 

The mass of successful financiers, like the majority of 
great men in other departments of business, have been 
compelled, after labor, to await the natural growth of 
results. Many fortunes have been realized on a sudden by 
speculation, but the majority are no sooner risen than, " like 
the Coal Oil Prince, they are busted." The fortune that 
abides with a man is built up by the gradual accretions of 
laborious years. 

George Peabody furnishes an eminent illustration of our 
general thought. His vast fortune was won through the 
careful application of long years. In 1856 when on a visit 
to Danvers, now named Peabod}', in honor of him, its most 
distinguished son and greatest benefactor, he said: 

" Though Providence has granted me an unvaried and 



24 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

unusual success in the pursuit of fortune in other lands, I 
am still, in heart, the humble boy who left yonder unpre- 
tending dwelling. There is not a youth within the sound 
of my voice whose early opportunities and advantages are 
not very much greater than were m}' own, and I have since 
achieved nothing that is impossible to the humblest boy 
among you." 

The bulk of Mr. Vanderbilt's fortune was earned after he 
was fifty years of age, and his heaviest operations were 
consummated when he was beyond three-score years. At 
this period they became appreciable to the world, but to 
Vanderbilt it had been one continued growth. A. T. 
Stewart made more mone}' after his fiftieth year than ever 
before. So did John Jacob Astor. The fortunes of the 
world have been made by men after the age of fifty — the 
fifty years previous being spent in establishing physical 
health and acquiring business knowledge. 

One Lord's Day, Lyman Beecher delivered one of his 
characteristic discourses before an immense audience. It 
was pronounced by many to be the finest effort of his life. 
As he stepped from the pulpit, a brother minister, a young 
man, approached him and inquired: " Doctor, how long did 
it take you to get up that sermon.'' " The Doctor smiled 
down on the youthful aspirant, and said, " Fifty years, 
sir." 

The class of common day-laborers has furnished us men 
who ivaiied on success. They have given us Brindly, the 
engineer. Cook, the navigator, and Burns, the poet. 
Masons and brickla3'ers can boast of Ben Jonson, who 
worked at the building of Lincoln's Inn, with a trowel in 
his hand and a book in his pocket; Edwards and Telford, 
the engineers, Hugh Miller, the geologist, and Allan Cun- 



SUCCESS A SLOW GROWTH. 25 

ningham, the writer and sculptor; while among distin- 
guished carpenters we find the names of Inigo Jones, the 
architect, Harrison, the chronometer-maker, John Hunter, 
the physiologist, Romney and Opie, the painters, Professor 
Lee. the orientalist, and John Gibson, the sculptor. Among 
the famous blacksmiths we find, Robert Collyer, the great 
preacher, and Elihu Burritt, the linguist. All these men 
have traveled to their emin,ence over the long-established 
pathway of a life-effort. 

Sir Joshua Re3uiolds said, " Excellence is never granted 
to man but as the reward of labor." If you have great 
talents, industry will improve them; if you have but 
moderate abilities, industry will supply the deficiency. 
"Nothing is denied to well-directed labor; nothing is to be 
obtained without it." 

Sir Fowell Buxton was a firm believer in the power of 
time. In his day, as in ours, men were restive under labor, 
and impatient at delay. Men fail not because they are not 
willing to work, but because they will not wait. Unable 
to reach the highest success in a few years, they conclude 
they never can reach it. Bu.xton entertained the modest 
idea that he could do as well as other men if he devoted to 
the pursuit double the time and labor that they did. He 
placed his great confidence in ordinary means and extraor- 
dinary endurance. 

Says the thoughtful Dr. Fowler : " Greatness is beyond 
a long journey. There may seem to be exceptions, but 
beware of the fallacy. Carefully studied, the ver}' excep- 
tions most clearly illustrate the rule. Victory is often a 
question of time. It is one of the deep encouragements of 
an age that ordinary men with extraordinary industry reach 
the highest achievements. 



26 TRE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

" Any man with solid moral purpose, patient industry, 
plain common sense, and unwearying courage, can become 
a useful and eminent man. Not in a da}', not in a week, 
not indeed in a year, but in a life-time. Achievements that 
are remembered cost some one a life-work. There is no 
hope out of this great law. Sit still and die. Press on and 
win. The perils of this time come from our haste. We 
sacrifice every thing for speed. Speed is a good thing, if 
not purchased at too high a price. It pays to wait for good 
foundations. A few weeks of time and .a few scores of 
piles, and the application of a little scientific knowledge, in 
the single transaction of building one government building 
in this country, would have saved to the government enough 
to have founded a great university, and educated a thousand 
engineers a year for all time to come. AVe are in too great 
haste for results. Mushrooms may mature in a night, but 
the cedars of Lebanon grow for fifteen centuries." 

It is a law of our nature that ever}' man can excel in his 
vocation, and a steadfast principle in business that every 
man can succeed in his calling. Do not, then, stand on the 
brink of some desired enterprise, shivering and trembling, 
but boldly plunge in and breast the waves. You may not 
achieve all that has crowned the efforts of some men ; but 
you can dare to do all that becomes a man. It is urged, 
there are no vacant places. True, there is a great press of 
people down stairs, but there is plenty of room up stairs. 
There are more first-class places than there are first-class 
men to fill them. The world is a rigid world, but in the 
long run it is an eminently just one. It never needed men 
more than to-day. It is seeking for worthy men to bestow 
its honors on. The times ai"e sifting the candidates more 
rigorously than ever before. All the business thoroughfares 



SUCCESS A SLOW GROWTH. 27 

are crowded, but the great mass of men are getting up 
some new patent process by which to overreach fortune ; 
or they are taking some short cut to success, while the few 
who stick to the old beaten road are distancing all their 
competitors. 

Whatever you do, do it well. You need not be sh}' of 
your ambition ; the world respects the man who is trying 
to make something out of himself. Let your aspirations 
out, and give your inspiration full play. Be strictly honest ; 
be above a mean act ; be conscientious. Be pleasant with 
your superiors ; be polite to 3'our inferiors ; be a gentleman. 
Read the newspapers ; read good books ; read the Bible. 
Advertise your business ; deal with dispatch ; pay your 
debts ; don't idle ; don't smoke ; don't chew ; don't swear; 
don't drink. Cultivate self-assertion ; blow your own 
trumpet to a moderate degree. Be as the Lord commanded 
Joshua, "very courageous." Pattern 3-our morals after 
the world's model, the Nazarine. Concentrate 3-our ener- 
gies upon one aim. Never permit " give up " a place in 
3'our vocabulary. Work hard ; be patient ; hope for the 
best ; and if 3'ou fail to reach the goal of 3'our aspirations, 
3'ou will possess the proud consciousness of having done 
3'Our best, which, after all, is the noblest "success in life." 
The highest praise bestowed b3- the Great Master was, 
" She hath done what she could." 





m^iPAh pmn^- 



My friends, you behold a man dying, full of lifel — AiiqiictH. 

To the strong hand and strong head, the capacious lungs and vigorous frame, 
fall, and will always fall, the heavy burdens ; and where the heavy burdens fall, the 
great prizes fall too. — Lazis of Lijc. 







T would be a curious and interesting study to trace 
the variety of opinions that have been held con- 
cerning the mutual relations of the body and the 
intellectual principle. The original idea was that body 
and mind were one and undivided. Anaxagoras, whose 
glory has been so eclipsed by his pupil and . successor, 
Socrates, holds the almost matchless merit of announcing, 
amid a heathen world, and without the light of any external 
revelation, the existence of a Supreme Intelligence, or Mind, 
and that man was a compound being, consisting of a body 
and a spirit. 

Under the early conceptions of man's nature, the body 
was trained carefully, along with the mind; both were 
treated as fellow- workers in one cause. The Academe, the 
Lyceum, and the C3'nosarges were schools for the body as 
well as the mind ; there the wrestler, the discobolus, and the 
philosopher met for common purposes. The ancient poets 
and historians picture all their heroes as physical giants. 
Hesiod represented the giants as divine beings. Homer 
says the men of his day were degenerate sons of the heroes 
of Troy. King Arthur and Charlemagne were said to be 
greater in stature than common men. And history reported 
William the Conquerer to be eight feet in height ; but when 



30 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

his tomb, at Caen, was broken open, and Stowe measured his 
bones, they were found to be of ordinary size. Alexander 
the Great, in one of his Asiatic expeditions, caused to be 
made and left behind him a suit of armor of huge propor- 
tions, for the purpose of inducing a belief among the people 
h.e had conquered that he was of very great stature. 

About the time of the Christian era, the body became 
graduall}- neglected and despised. However, it was not a 
Christian doctrine, for there we are taught that body and 
soul are to be preserved blameless! Bod}- and mind came 
to be reckoned as having separate and antagonistic interests. 
Philosophers considered the body a clog, an impediment to 
the acquisition of knowledge. To the post-apostolic Chris- 
tians the body was sin incarnate, the source of all evil and 
temptation, the barrier between the soul and hea^■en. When 
Epictetus, the philosopher, was severely treated by his mas- 
ter, Epaphroditus, under the most intense agony he smiled, 
and told him he would break his leg with twisting it. This 
actually did occur without disturbing his equanimit3'. On 
being questioned as to the cause of this astonishing compos- 
ure, he merely replied that the body was '■'■external.'''' 

Gregory Nyssen, in the era of the church fathers, emptied 
the phials of his abuse upon the body, as " a fuliginous, ill- 
savored shop, a prison, an ill-savored stink, a lump of flesh 
which moldereth away, and draweth near to corruption 
whilst we speak of it." And the Manicheans put the climax 
to these reproaches by teaching that God was the author of 
the soul, but the Devil was maker of the bod}'. 

While this last conception has died away as matter of 
philosophy and faith, still its spirit is manifested in our land 
to a perilous extent. The influences that surround our intel- 
lectual young men lead them to despise the body as only a 



PUYtilCAL CULTURE. 31 

workshop for the mind, while it grades their intelligence to a 
preternatural acti\it}-. As- the result of this, the prophesied 
possessor of the 'wooden spoon" from Yale, or the first 
honors from our standard colleges, sinks into the darkness of 
mediocrity, and the rough-and-tumble boy from the log 
school-house or flat-boat moves up to the helm of affairs. 

We have no right to build up the mind at the expense of 
the body. If some giant-framed Bodine, whose remains 
Buftbn would take for a fossil elephant, has dissipated and 
caroused for sixty years without destroying his mental pow- 
ers, that is no reason why the mass of men should deem the 
body a Gibraltar that can not be overthrown. As well 
might we expect a house to stand when the foundation is 
taken from under it, as to demand intellectual vigor from a 
man whose physical health and strength have been wrecked 
One of the first requisites of a successful life is a good 
physique. 

Intellectual culture has come to be a mania, and it is fos- 
tered by a popular disapprobation of manly sports. The 
college regattas are sneered at by the papers. The "move- 
ment cure," gymnasiums, and health-lifts are laughed at by 
physicians. Base ball has been classed with faro, and cro- 
quet has been surnamed " Presbyterian billiards." Ph3'sical 
prowess is nearly a shame, and every American is trj'ing to 
crawl out of his body into his head. Pharmaceutical nos- 
trums are poured down e^'ery puny, emaciated creature that 
is dying from a poor circulation and lack of exercise. The 
feet are crowded into little boots, the hands pinched by kids, 
the body as thinly draped as that of a Feejee Islander, and 
yet men are trying to have their brain weigh as much as 
Webster's. 

If we take a look at the English character, we find a 



32 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

wholesome commentary on our intellectual stuffing. An 
Englishman thinks as much of his stomach as he does of his 
brain. Confessedly the Englishwoman is not so good look- 
ing as the American woman, but then she is a beef-eater. 
She takes exercise, she has muscle, she honors her body, not 
for its looks, but for its worth. The English people are 
"good feeders,'' and vigorous indulgers in sports. Cricket 
and all the kindred plays are indulged in by lords and ladies, 
commoners and laborers. Charles James Fox, with all his 
adipose, could pick up a tennis ball with the ease of a strip- 
ling. The athletic sports of Oxford and Cambridge are of 
national interest. E\en Parliament adjourns over Derby 
day. Englishmen take to exercise like the Germans to 
beer. It is national, and they present the world a square- 
built, solid race of men, capable of tremendous exertion and 
long endurance. 

This English virtue is not to be despised by Americans. 
Muscle will tell when it comes to brain work. Set two men 
of equal mind-power to an equal intellectual task, and the 
physically frail man will not perform his work as creditably 
as the one with an iron constitution. Hence, English states- 
men, officers, and literary men perform more brain \vork 
than any other people. The ro3'al family and those ele\ated 
to high positions within the realm, live far beyond the com- 
mon average of 3ears. Is it not because life becomes 
an " item," and therefore the most strictly scientific and 
medical attention is paid to its interests.^ The American 
seems to calculate on a short life, apparently preferring a 
brief and railroad rate of existence to a sluggish longe\'ity. 
At present we waste almost every thing in our haste — our 
land as much as our lives. 

The American scholar and thinker is by rule a dyspeptic. 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 33 

He is a razor-faced, lantern-jawed, thin, nervous man. This 
is partly the effect of climate, and partly that of diet and 
regimen. In the old days of bran-bread and prayers before 
daylight in the colleges, and long morning walks before 
breakfast, and suicidal, consumpti\e habits, it required a 
pretty tough man to live through his studies at all. We are 
now doing this thing better, but we have not reached the 
highest outcome of the change, and shall not reach it, prob- 
ably, for several generations. But we have come to the 
recognition of the fact that it does not toughen a man to 
reduce his diet, to cut short his sleep, to take long walks on 
an empty stomach, and to indulge in cold baths when there 
is no well-supported \itality to respond to them. We have 
come to the conviction that, for a useful public life, brains are 
of very little account if there are no inuscles to do their 
bidding. In short, we have learned that, without physical 
vitality, the profoundest learning, the most charming talents, 
and the best accomplishments are of little use to a public 
man, in whatever field of professional life he may be engaged. 

The London Times of Oct. 2S, 1857, had a vigorous and 
thoughtful article on building up the mind at the expense of 
the body, from which we extract liberall}- : 

'' It has been too much the fashion with us to decry the 
body, to talk it down, to speak scornfully of it in every pos- 
sible way, to be always comparing it with the mind for the 
sole purpose of showing how \-ile and worthless it is in com- 
parison, — a mode of speaking which, even if it is true 
abstractedly, may be indulged in such a degree as to involve 
a practical untruth. Our didactic books have been full of 
the praises of midnight oil, all our oracles of learning have 
been vehement in favor of unsparing study, and the mind 



34 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

has been subjected to the most acute stimulants, while the 
body has been left to take care of itself as it can. 

" These have been the tactics, we say, of our modern 
masters of the schools and encouragers of learning — an 
unsparing use of the goad, a merciless appeal to student 
ambition and emulation, as if it was impossible to stir up 
these motives too deeply. But how one-sided is a di^ipline 
which applies this powerfully sharp and penetrating stimulus 
to the mind, while it leaves to itself, or, rather, what is worse, 
suppresses and flings aside the claims of the body, which 
has to fare as it can under the exclusive and oppressive 
dominion of its rival ! How partial is such a system, and 
superficial because partial ! After all our sublime abuse of 
the body, a bod}' man has, and that body is part of himself ; 
and if he is not fair to it, he himself will be the sufferer. 
The whole man, we say, will be the sufferer — not the cor- 
poreal man only, but the intellectual man as well. Par- 
ticular capacities may receive even a monstrous develop- 
ment by the use of an exclusive stimulus, but the reason and 
judgment of the man as a whole must be injured if one* integ- 
ral part of him is diseased. If the body is thoroughly out 
of condition, the mind will suffer ; it may show a morbid 
enlargement of one or other facult}' of it, but the directing 
principle — that which alone can apply any faculty or knowl- 
edge to a good purpose, can regulate its use and check its 
extravagances — is weakened and reduced. How miserable is 
the spectacle of morbid learning, with its buried hoards, and 
its voracious, insatiable appetite for acquisition, united with 
the judgment of a child ! The picture of a Kirke White 
dying at the age of twenty-one, of nocturnal study, wet tow- 
els round heated temples, want of sleep, want of exercise, 
want of air, want of everything which Nature intended for 



PETSrCAL CULTURE. 35 

the body, is not only melancholy because it is connected with 
an early death — it is melancholy also on account of the cer- 
tain eftect which would have followed such a course unchecked 
if he had li\ed. We see, when we look down the vista of 
such a life, an enfeebled and a prostrated man, very fit to be 
made a lion of, like a clever child, and to be patted on the 
head by patrons and patronesses of genius, but without the 
proper intellect and judgment of a man. How sad even is 
the spectacle of that giant of German learning, Neander, 
lying his whole length on the floor among his books, absorb- 
ing recondite matter till the stupor of repletion comes over 
hiin, forgetful of time and place, not knowing where he is, 
on the earth or in the moon, led like a child by his sister to 
his lecture-rooin, when the lecture hour came, and led away 
home again when it was over ! Is this humanity, we ask, 
as Providence designed us to be? Is it legitimate, rational 
human nature? It can hardly be called so. 

" We must not let the mind feed itself by the ruin of the 
body. The mind should be a good, strong, healthy feeder, 
but not a glutton. Do not use too unsparingly the motive 
of ambition in dealing with youth. It is a motive which is 
perfectly honest and natural, within proper limits; but, 
when pushed to excess, it produces a feeble, sickly, 
unmanly growth of character; it creates that whole brood 
of fantastic theorists, sentimentalists, and speculators which, 
in art, science, and theology alike, are the seducers and the 
corruptors of mankind." 

There can be no doubt that excessive mental labor has 
an unfavorable influence upon the health and the character, 
ruining the former, and rendering the latter " feeble, sickly, 
and unmanly," and that this is especially the case with 
young persons. It is also true that, in our educational 



36 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

systems generally, the body is neglected, and, at its 
expense, the mind is urged beyond its normal powers. 

We believe, with Anaxagoras, that man is a duality, 
compounded of body and mind; yet we must go beyond 
him, and accept the more remote ancients, who made the 
whole man an indivisible unit. Therefore, it must be 
granted that health is one of the ingredients of talent. 
What could Frederick the Great have accomplished 
without health.^ He did not move his armies and rule his 
states by the intuition of genius — no great man ever had 
less of it — and he was one of the greatest of men. His 
early efforts in the field were covered with the most shame- 
ful blunders. By intense application he mastered military 
tactics. Like Newton, he gave himself unto it. He would 
trust no man; without cabinet officers, and with but few 
clerks, from his butcher's bill to the gravest affairs of state, 
he exercised personal supervision over all, and ruled single- 
handed. What enabled him to do it.'' Not brain-power 
simply, but a physical constitution that labored eighteen 
hours out of twenty-four, and never felt fatigue for seventy- 
four years. A Kirke White or a Blaise Pascal, with all 
their genius, would have gone to their graves in two years 
under such labors, or been flattened to hopeless mediocrity. 
Had Hannibal been less a Hercules, he would not have held 
Rome at bay until his hair was white. And Audubon 
could never have roamed over the forests, enduring the 
hardships and misfortunes he encountered, had his lignum- 
\ itum been less fibrous. Ever}' man of learning will say 
that the ferocious courage of Charles XII of Sweden, the 
mighty pluck of Mirabeau, and the colossal works of 
Walter Scott gained a great portion of their power and 
vastness from unusual physical constitution. 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 37 

To understand, conceive, and scheme, a well-developed 
forehead is needed; to drive, execute, and overturn, a full 
back head is needed. Who ever saw a man possessing the 
forehead of Benjamin Franklin, and the base of the brain 
without development, as in Coleridge, execute any heroic 
work? There is Thomas De Quincey, with the frontal of 
poet, philosopher, and warrior, but the base of his brain 
was a cavity. The man who climbed the rafters while 
his wife whipped the bear had as much resolution as De 
Quincey. A Julius Caesar may be little, suffer from the 
dyspepsia, and have a tit ever}- time he plans a battle; but 
the bumps on the back of his head are as large as they are 
in front; and the world must take care of its dominions 
when such men march to execute their schemes. In a word, 
man is an animal as well as an intellectual being, and, 
while the brain conceives and projects, it is the animal that 
furnishes the backbone, and pushes the design with vigor. 

Dr. Holland, in his customar}- manner, testifies to the 
importance of physical culture, while taking a survey of the 
New York and Brooklyn pulpits: 

" The two great men of the Brooklyn pulpit are splendid 
men physically, and they never could have been the powers 
they are had they been otherwise. Dr. Chapin and Robert 
Collyer, though fine and strong in intellectual fiber, are not 
so exceptional!}- remarkable in that particular as to account 
for their long strong hold upon the public mind. The two 
Boston preachers who draw the largest crowds, Mr. Phillips 
Brooks and Mr. Murray, are men of entirely exceptional 
physique — hard to be matched anywhere in the world for 
size and strength. It is an inspiration to look at them. 
Their presence is magnetic. They exercise a charm which 
can only come from complete manhood — the equipoise of 



38 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

thought and intent with voice and might. If we turn to our 
own city, and see where the crowds are, we shall find them 
at Dr. Hall's and Dr. Taylor's. Mr. Hepworth's church, 
too, is usually a crowded one. It is no dishonor to these 
men to say that the people do not flock to them because 
they preach the best sermons to be heard in New York. 
There are a dozen pulpits furnished with as good brains as 
these. The simple truth is that, if they were called upon to 
preach with a slender physique and a weak voice, their 
crowds would leave them." 

Oyer brain work maj' destroy the ver}' finest physical 
organization. Southey had sinews of steel, and yet he died 
in darkness from over-toil. Sir Walter Scott, with a natu- 
ral ability to dispatch work such as few literary men have 
possessed, inherited a vigorous constitution, and sought to 
keep it intact. When writing Waverly he would " pen all 
morning like a tiger," and race his horse all afternoon in tlie 
chase. But when he became involved in debt, be had no 
time to give his body rest and exercise. Speaking of the 
debt, he said: "This right hand shall work it off. If we 
lose every thing else, we will at least keep our honor 
unblemished." He threw himself into his task as a soldier 
in the forlorn hope flings himself into the jaws of death. He 
rushed through Woodstock, told the Tales of a Grandfather, 
revised his novels, wrote his Letters on Demonology and 
Witchcraft when his health was so undermined he could 
scarcely hold his pen. When he threw off the Life of 
Napoleon, he wrote in his diary, " These battles have been 
the death of many a man. I think the}' will be mine." 
And at last, after having Anglo-Saxonized the language of 
Europe, and made a literature, he broke down physically at 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 39 

fifty-five, and went to his grave at sixty with a softened 
brain. 

" From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow, 

And Swift expires a driveler, and a show." 

Minds that could wander through eternity wrecked for 
lack of a few hours daily spent in physical culture! '-My 
brain is burning, I can bear life no longer! " said the author 
of the Old Red Sandstone, and the suicide's pistol puts on 
the finishing stroke. Hugh Miller was, intellectually, a 
giant, and, physically, possessed a frame of iron; but he \io- 
lated the laws which govern health — he taxed his brain with 
more toil than it could well perform; it reeled and staggered, 
but it reeled and staggered in vain. He pulled away and 
lashed it into fur}', and he perished to gratify his genius and 
his ambition. 

There are men who overtax their minds all day long, 
through months and years, ignorant that there is a subtle but 
inevitable connection between dyspepsia and too much men- 
tal exertion. It is a thing which every man should under- 
stand, that there is a point beyond which, if he urge his 
brain, the injurious result will be felt, not in the head, but in 
the stomach. Did not the overtaxed nerves of Cicero first 
cry out in his stomach.'' It was not until after he had fled 
before dyspepsia to the gymnasium, and lived on hygiene 
and cracked corn for two years that " he pulverized Catiline 
and blasted Anton}'." Beecher says: 

'' There is scarcely one man in a hundred who supposes 
that he must ask leave of his stomach to be a happy man. 
In many cases the difference between happy men and 
unhappy men is caused by their digestion. Oftentimes the 
difference between hopeful men and melancholy men is 
simply the difference of their digestion. There is much that 



40 THE OEISIUS OF INDUtjTllT. 

is called spiritual ailment that is nothing but stomachic ail- 
ment. I have, during my experience as a religious teacher, 
had persons call upon mc with that hollow cheek, that 
emaciated face, and that peculiar look which indicate the 
existence of this cerebral and stomachic difficulty, to tell me 
about their trials and temptations; and, whatever I may 
have said to them, my inward thought has been, ' There is 
ver}' little help that can be afforded you till your health is 
established.' The foundation of all earthly happiness is 
physical health; and yet men scared}' ever value it till they 
have lost it." 

Dr. J. W. Alexander testified to the same point. When 
asked if he enjoyed the full assurance of faith, he answered: 
" I think I do, except when the wind is from the east." 
Hodson, of Hodson's House, wrote back to a friend in 
England: "I believe if I get on well in India, it will be 
owing, physically speaking, to a sound digestion." It is said 
that Elihu Burritt found hard labor necessary to his health, 
and more than once went back to the leather apron and 
forge for the sake of body and mind. 

Mental over-work is the great American disease. It is 
not confined to the study alone, but is visible in the count- 
ing-room and all the branches of trade. How many men, 
like Dean Swift, are "dying a-top first." It may take on 
the form of paralysis or apoplexy, but the real cause lies in 
an over-worked brain. This mental collapse is not confined 
to our shores; the English and French are burdened with 
the same affliction. One of the valuable lessons to be educed 
from the life and death of the late M. Thiers is that which 
teaches brain workers the necessar}' limits of mental endur- 
ance. An able writer in the New York World says : 

" It appears that Thiers became so morbidly nervous 



PHr.iICAL CULTURE. 41 

toward the close of his career, that the breaking of waves on 
the shore at Dieppe, and the whispering of the wind through 
the tree-tops of a forest, were to him intolerable noises, 
while the fall of a knife on the floor of the room in which he 
had shut himself up for the sake of quiet, nearly drove him 
to distraction. All the political troubles of his later life 
were as nothing in comparison with trouble caused by those 
gentle and soothing sounds of nature — the wind and the 
wave. 

" It is well known that Thiers led an intensely busy life in 
the line of literary producti\eness. He wrote, spoke, and 
talked incessantly. His brain was in a constant whirl of 
movement and activity. His historical and political writ- 
ings alone constitute the work of an ordinary intellect for a 
lifetime. And by this prolonged strain and mental worry, 
he prepared himself for the sudden stroke of paralysis which 
ended his career." 

There is a Hmit to mental endurance. When this limit 
is reached, a Samson is as likel}- to retire with a soft head 
or paralysis as some pigmy whose body could be trussed in 
an eel-skin. It is a fact that some of the world's most pro- 
digious workers have been borne about in very frail taber- 
nacles. Petrarch was so diseased that he fell in a fainting 
fit whenever his mind was overloaded. Julius Csesar could 
not plan a battle without sufl;ering in the same manner. 
Cowper's body was fragile, while his spirit was pure essence. 
Nursed and cared for by Mrs. Unwin, " as though he were 
her consumptive boy," subject to depressions of melancholy, 
and, at times, of total aberration ; he, nevertheless, wrote 
largely, gave us the purest poetry of his century, and 
re-gave to England the standard ^•erse. Bonaparte, who 
performed such herculean feats of endurance, both physically 



42 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

and mentally, half-killing his four secretaries, performing the 
labors of a literary man and a business man, and in the 
saddle eighteen hours out of twenty-four, had a chronic dis- 
ease of the stomach, and had to watch his digestion as 
keenly as Pascal, that poor waif of physical life who 
weighed his morsels of bread, and balanced his bit of trout 
in an apothecary's scales. 

It took all the knowledge of art and medicine to hold the 
flickering flame of life in the breast of William III; and 
Epictetus was, he tells us, " a cripple and a beggar." Was 
not Nelson little and lame? Yet he was the hero of Trafal- 
gar. Was not Byron club-footed, weakl}-, and of a morbid 
temperament.^ Yet "he stooped to touch the loftiest 
thought." And here is Thomas DeQuincey, " this fragile 
and unsubstantial figure — this dagger of lath — this ghostly 
body resting on a pair of immaterial legs," possessing "one 
of the most potent and original spirits that ever dwelt in a 
tenement of clay." Look at that literary leviathan, Samuel 
Johnson, so feeble and delicate, as a child, that his mother 
carried him on a pillow, and his physician ' never knew 
another raised with such difficulty " — his whole body was 
honey-combed with scrofulous sores, his head was drawn to 
one side, his right cheek eaten almost off, and his bod}' 
twisted into unsightly contortions— suffering horrors from a 
constitutional depression that kept him " mad half his life, 
or at feast not sober " — sitting in his chair with one arm 
thrown over its back, his legs doubled up under him, he 
looked like a cross between the hunchback and kangaroo. 
He would sit swaying his ungainly figure to and fro, with 
his languid eyes half shut, chanting some incoherent ditty 
for hours. Yet where is the man whose pen has traced 
more pages, or given vent to grander thoughts.? 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 43 

Notwithstanding the profound results attained by these, 
and man}' others, who have dwelt in unsubstantial bodies, 
the verdict must be rendered in favor of a vigorous consti- 
tution. These men worked against fearful odds, and only 
their unusual endowments permitted them to accomplish 
what they did. Using INIacaulay, with some additions, 
Mathews says: "Rarely does the world behold such a 
spectacle as that presented in 1693, at Neerwinden, in the 
Netherlands, when, among the one hundred and twenty 
thousand soldiers who were marshaled under the banners 
of all Europe, the two feeblest in body were the hunch- 
backed dwarf who urged on the fiery onset of France and 
the asthmatic skeleton who covered the slow retreat of 
England." 

Again, the battles of the world have not all been won by 
the heavy men. It must be confessed that the giant frames 
have not held a large share of the great souls. Grant is of 
very medium height. Nelson couldn't see over a sailor's 
shoulder, and Bonaparte was known as the " Little Cor- 
poral." Louis XIV, the Grand JMonarque., was unable to 
tip six feet, even in his high heels and feathers, while our 
own Douglas was distinguished as the ''Little Giant." 
Children some times ask the size of Alexander, and we are 
all half disposed to believe him a physical Titan, but history 
records him as one of the smallest men in his army. It was 
not stature that made Frederick the Great the fierce and 
awful conqueror he was, but the vast energies pent up in 
his little clay tenement. 

The elder Pitt was not large, and Burke was small; and 
when Warren Hastings (who gave England an empire) 
advanced to the bar, bent his knee, and kissed the scepter 
of the realm in the great hall of William Rufus, preparatory 



44: THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

to being tried on the charge of " exercising tyranny over 
the lord of the holy city of Benares, and over the ladies of 
the princely house of Oude," the smallest man in all the 
eminent array was he vv^hose genius and crimes had con- 
voked the august gathering. 

These small-bodied, or feeble-bodied, men often have 
what the physical giants do not always possess — working 
capacity. A man may be in frame a Heenan, and never be 
able to endure a week's severe toil. The length of the 
arms, the avoirdupois, or the ability to lift Dr. Winship's 
load, is no sure sign of an enduring constitution. Some of 
the rarest and most potent essences ot nature have been 
inclosed in strange and unsightly caskets, but every morn- 
ing they have borrowed a fresh bit of life, and have per- 
formed the work of two men's lives, long after the Heenans 
and Winships were in their graves. There was somehow 
a wonderful potenc}' for work in Socrates, as he stood in 
his daj'-long trance of thought, and in the macerated and 
visionary Luther in his Augustinian cell. 

In Froissart's chivalrous and romantic account of the 
delivery of France from the English invaders, only the hand 
of the sinewy Bertrand du Guesclin is to be seen; but the 
real spring of all was the head of the feeble invalid who 
conquered the two Edwards. It has been observed by a 
thoughtful writer that " a table would not be called strong 
if two of its legs were cracked and several of its joints loose, 
however tough might be its materials, and however good 
its original workmanship. But if the table showed a power 
of holding together and recovering itself, notwithstanding 
every sort of rough usage, it might well be called strong, 
though it was ultimately broken up; and its strength might 
not unnaturally be measured by the quantity of ill-usage 



PUYSICAL CULTURE. 45 

which it survived. It is precisely in this power of self- 
repair that the difference between a body and a mere 
machine resides. The difficulty of saying what is meant by 
physical strength is in the difficulty of distinguishing 
between the mechanical and what, for want of a better 
word, must be called the vital powers of the body. Look 
upon the body as a machine, and the broken arm, the tub- 
ercles in the lungs, or the cancer in the liver, prevent you 
from calling it strong; but, if it goes on acting for years, 
and wonderfully recovering itself again and again from the 
catastrophe which these defects tend to produce, there must 
be a strong something somewhere." 

It is this self-restoring quality one wants. It is worth 
more than the heirloom of longevity or the muscle of Spar- 
tacus. Without a constitution that can repair its own 
waste and wear, one is in a sorry plight for the friction and 
break-neck encounters of life. The man who encourages a 
good physique is the one who comes the nearest giving 
nature all she asks to suppl}' the drain upon the sj-stem; and 
his chances for standing up against hardships and pulling 
through fatiguing exertions safely are very much superior 
to those of the man with the frail body. However, over- 
work, mental or physical, when stretched beyond the limits 
of the self-recuperative powers, will leave the most vigorous 
man a crazy constitution for the rest of his days. Men 
sometimes talk of over-work and under-rest — as though 
one might over- work safely if he would over-rest as much. 
In the matter of mere exhaustion, rest will restore; but, 
where the system is unduly taxed — pressed beyond the 
limits of its abilities — there is no elixir of life in rest. Every 
man has about so much vital force, and when that is spent, 
he is undone. 



46 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

I close this chapter by citing a vigorous and able sum- 
mary of the question, which recently appeared in the 
editorial columns of the London Times: 

" There is perhaps no man living, of whom more feats ot 
labor and triumphs over the frail physique of humanity are 
recorded, than of Lord Brougham. Legends of this sort 
have gathered round him like a Hercules. There is a 
legend that he once worked six continuous days — /, e., one 
hundred and forty-four hours — without sleep ; that he then 
rushed down to his country lodgings, slept all Saturday 
night, all Sunday, all Sunday night, and was waked by his 
valet on Monday morning, to resume the responsibilities ot 
life and commence the work of the next week. A man 
must, of course, have a superhuman constitution who can 
do, we will not say this particular feat, which is perhaps 
mythical, but feats of this class, and probably the greatness 
of our great men is quite as much a bodily affair as a men- 
tal one. Nature has presented them not only with extra- 
ordinary minds, but — what has quite as much to do with 
the matter — with wonderful bodies. What can a man do 
without a constitution — a working constitution.'' He is laid 
on the shelf from the day he is born. For him no munifi- 
cent destiny reserves the Great Seal, or the Rolls, or the 
Chiefjusticeship, or the leadership of the House of Com- 
mons, the Treasury, or the Admiralty, or the Horse Guards, 
the Home Office, or the Colonies. The Church may pro- 
mote him, for it does not signify to the Church whether a 
man does his work or not, but the State will have nothing 
to do with the poor, constitutionless wretch. He will not 
rise higher than a Recordership or a Poor Law Board. ' But,' 
somebody will ask, ' has that pale, lean man, with a face 
like parchment, and nothing on his bones, a constitution.''' 



rnrsicAL culture. 47 

Yes, he has — he has a working constitution, and a ten-times 
better one than you, my good friend, with your ruddy face 
and strong, muscular frame. You look, indeed the very 
picture of health, but you have, in reality, only a sporting 
constitution, not a working- one. You do very well for the 
open air, and get on tolerably well, with fine, healthy exer- 
cise and no strain on your brain. But try close air for a 
week — try confinement, with heaps of confused papers and 
books of reference, blue books, or law books, or dispatches 
to get through, and therefrom extract liquid and transparent 
results, and you will find yourself knocked up and fainting, 
when the pale, lean man is— if not as fresh as a daisy, which 
he never is, being of the perpetually cadaverous kind — at 
least as unatTected as a bit of leather, and not showing the 
smallest sign of giving way. There are two sorts of good 
constitutions — good idle constitutions, and good working 
ones. When nature makes a great man, she presents him 
with the latter gift. Not that we wish to deprive our great 
men of their merit. A man must make one or two experi- 
ments before he finds out his constitution. A man of spirit 
and mettle makes the experiment, tries himself and runs the 
risk, as a soldier does on the field. The battle of life and 
death is often fought as really in chambers or in an office as 
it is on the field. A soul is required to make use of the 
body, but a great man must have a body as well as a soul 
to work with. Charles Buller, Sir William Molesworth, 
and others, are instances of men whose bodies refused to 
support their souls, and were therefore obliged to give up the 
prize when they had just reached it. And how many hun- 
dreds, or thousands — if one did but know them — perish in 
an earlier stage, before they have made any way at all, sim- 
ply because, though they had splendid minds, they had very 



48 THE GENIUS OP INDUtSTRT. 

poor bodies ! Let our lean, cadaverous friend, then, when 
the laurel surmounts his knotty, parchment face, thank 
Heaven for his body, which, he may depend upon it, is 
almost as great a treasure as his soul. Nature may not 
have made him a handsome man, but what does this signify? 
She has made him a strong one." 





I or Tiifto* 




'^^^iT^ 




j;€<)j^<)tiy <)Y IW^- 



Think'st thou existence doth depend on time? 
It doth ; but actions are our epochs : mine 
Have made my days and nights imperishable, 
Endless, and all alike. 

— Byron; Man/red. 

Dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life 
is made of. — Franklin. 





of TI^ 



m}omj or "pro^. 




HE lame and weakly little Nelson was wont to call 
time his estate. He considered it inheritance 
enough, and thought if its moments were properly 
husbanded he could gain all needed riches. " I owe all my 
success in life," he once said, " to having been always a 
quarter of an hour before my time." Some take no 
thought of the value of time until they have come to its 
close. The hours are allowed to tlow by unemployed, and 
then, when life is fast waning, they bethink themselves of 
the duty of making a wiser use of it. But habits of listless- 
ness and idleness, once confirmed, are not easily thrown off, 
and the man who permits the seed-time of his years to pass 
unsown, can only in the autumn of his life reap a harvest of 
remorse and poverty. Lost wealth may be replaced by 
industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temper- 
ance or medicine; but lost time is gone forever. 

The man who is habituall}^ behind time is habitually 
behind success. An unpunctual man never accomplishes 
what he desires to; he is systematically late; he arrives at 
his appointment after time; he gets to the depot just as the 
train has started; posts his letter one minute after the box 



52 THE OEA^IUS OF INDUSTRY. 

has closed; and old age finds him just as he has turned a 
new leaf and resolved thereafter to be punctual. Lord 
Chesterfield wittily said of the Duke of Newcastle: "His 
Grace loses an hour in the morning, and is looking for it all 
the rest of the day." It is a matter of true conscientious- 
ness to be on time with every duty. 

Successful military men have all been noted for their 
regard of time. General Grant was never known to get 
out of patience with an officer unless he was behind time. 
Even the quiet and slow Washington said to a late secre- 
tary, who laid the blame upon his watch: " You must get 
another watch, or I another secretar}-." The fate of an 
army, and sometimes of a nation, has hung on the move- 
ments of an hour. Bonaparte once felt that the morrow's 
battle hung on utter darkness in his camp at nine o'clock, 
so that the enemy would not suspect any preparations for 
the coming contest. When the bugle sounded nine, the 
little Corsican, with that e3'e which must see to ever}- 
detail, blew out his candle over an important order half 
written, and, stepping to his door, peered into the darkness 
for obedience. He saw one tent with a light. He hurried 
to it, entered unannounced, and found a brave officer 
penning a last sentence to his wife. The delinquent made 
a confused explanation of the circumstance. Bonaparte 
heard him in sorrow; but obedience was of more value to 
France than love. " Add a postscript," commanded the 
imperial voice, " and say: ' I die at sunrise for disobedience 
of orders.' " 

Not one of all the stereotyped excuses for failure is called 
so often to men's lips as the lack of time. Men feeling the 
movings of aspiration to do something in the world worthy 
of themselves, long to place their feet in the tracks of a 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 53 

Xavier or Humboldt; but, alas! for want of education or 
wealth, they are not able to do so. They read how Adam 
Clarke and Davy toiled from ignorance up to the very 
summit of knowledge and ability to help their fellows; but 
to earn a living for a wife and one child takes them from 
seven until six, and every waking moment is so fully 
engrossed that they have no time to read and study. Hun- 
dreds of men are plodding through life without a book in 
their house, or newspaper, or ever hearing a lecture, 
because they have no time for such things. 

These are the men who never get above the wealth or the 
wages with which they started in life. They are the men 
who make incendiary speeches in that valuable organiza- 
tion, " The Workingmen's Union," and lead mobs to fire 
cities and depredate on capital. They put their blind, 
insensate muscle against the progress of to-day, that 
demands muscle mixed with brains. Rest and recreation 
are necessar}' to the best use of our powers. A steam 
engine must rest, and even a Great Eastern occasionally 
goes into dock to be touched up during a resting-spell. The 
men who are so near-sighted that they can see no success 
except in straightforward, unremitting work, will only have 
their labor for their pains, for the shrewd, cultured fellows, 
who have expanded their wits and enlarged their mental 
muscle by the recreation of study and society, will bear 
down on them sooner or later, and get away with their 
rusty savings. 

Select your men from the farm or office who have made 
the most money and done the most good — the men who 
carry the business of half a dozen men on their shoulders, 
who have hundreds of employes; who do not have an idle 
day once in a year; men who, their friends and physicians 



54 TUB GENIUS OF INLUSTBT. 

sa}', are going to kill themselves at business, and yet they 
smile and work on, and die vigorous at eighty. These are 
the men who tind time to attend Relief Societies ; who have 
leisure to hear political speeches and scientific lectures ; who 
read the newspapers; who have large libraries, every book 
of which they can, tell you something about; who were 
never so busy but they could stop and chat pleasantly with 
a friend for five minutes. Two of the wealthiest merchants 
of Chicago, driving a business of millions, are never absent 
from prayer-meeting, or an official meeting of their clubs or 
lodges. 

The capacity to do is largely measured by what is being 
done. One man requires a whole day to saw a cord of 
wood, and positively has no time for any thing else; another 
will saw and split it in a da}', will whistle at his work, brush 
himself up after supper, and read an hour. In some fami- 
lies where there are but two, the wife is always behind with 
her work; in others the woman with six children will do 
all her work, be dressed up in the afternoon, read, call, and 
have plenty of time for any thing that demands extra care. 
The reason is these people are in the habit of doing. Their 
blood finds no stagnating corners in all their systems. 
Their activit}' drives it from the lurking places, and sends 
it whirling on its appointed way. The whole forces of 
their organism are aroused; every muscle is put into action; 
their conceptions become far-reaching and acute; the}- are 
able to utilize every square inch of power within them. 
Thus, they have an accelerated capacity for execution. 
Then, there is a momentum in the active man which, of 
itself, almost carries him to his mark, just as a little steam 
on the driving-piston will keep the train agoing, when a 
strong blast was necessary to give it a start. 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 55 

The great works of the world have not been wrought 
by sudden spurts of application. True, there are times 
when Dexter makes a grand burst of speed; and so every 
man finds himself occasionalh' pushing his work with won- 
drous facilit}'. And he ought to make the very best of 
these unexplainable inspirations. But they are not to be 
relied on. Persistent effort is the onl}' thing to be depended 
on, and a genius for that is the very best kind of genius. 

Astor laid the foundation for his millions by hoarding 
the cents. So men like Ilerschel and Faraday have used 
their odd moments in reading or experimenting and then 
hurried to their work with the result safely deposited in the 
bank of memory. B}' these gradual and almost unappreci- 
able accretions, through long years have they come to pos- 
sess the knowledge and wisdom which enabled them to bless 
the world; while others who spent the same moments in 
careless talk, or in idle lounging, have been so hurried by 
their business that they have found it impossible to devote 
thirty minutes a day to self-culture. 

Many successful men have supported themselves during 
their college course by sawing wood, or other manual labor 
in the fragments of their time. Hugh Miller used to say 
that it puzzled him to know what his occupation really was; 
for while his study gave his brain a living, his work in the 
quarry furnished his body a living. It matters but little 
from which source the living comes. But it is clear that if 
one can use the remnants of each day to advantage, what 
is he not able to accomplish even in them! Will not a 
man, by economizing every spare moment of a day, be 
able to obtain greater results at the end of ten years in his 
business than he could attain without culture.^ Was not 
the wealth and lasting fame of Sir Humphre)' Davy 



66 THE OENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

and Sir Walter Scott built out of the use of their spare 
moments? 

Because it will take a great while to produce some good 
result, and you can not give 3-ourself to it in consecutive 
hours, shall you therefore give it up altogether? Then rather 
be thankful that you are able in the parings of time to do 
some useful thing. The ver}* thought that the bits of the 
mornings, noons, and evenings, when freed from the harness, 
are actually yours — that you are monarch over moments, 
brief though your reign may be — should inspire you with 
the determination to use them in a kingly way. William 
Cullen Bryant was long tied to the onerous duties of 
the editorial chair, but he so fiilly appreciated the value 
of the swiftl3'-flying moments of life, that, in those slim 
crevices of time available to a city editor, he wrote a 
large volume of poetr}-, and his name will be borne down 
" the flood of years " by the labors of those spare moments. 
If the broken fragments of time are used more earnestly 
because of their brevit}' the}' will be the one investment of 
life that will yield a compound interest in old age. Young 
spoke a solemn truth when he said : 

"Youth is not rich in time; it maybe poor; 
Part with it as with money, sparingly; pay 
No moment but in purchase of its worth ; 
And what it's worth, ask death-beds; they can tell ! " 

Time is free alike to all men. The con-\-ict in the prison, 
the free laborer of the land, and the millionaire have frag- 
ments of time at their disposal; and he who uses them to 
the best results is most a man. 

" The greatest schemes that human wit can forge, 
Or bold ambition dares to put in practice, 
Depend upon our husbanding a moment." 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 57 

That young English officer who was appointed to a post 
in India gave prophecy of his future self, when the Ministry 
inquired, "When will j'ou be ready to start?" by answer- 
ing, "To-morrow morning." He afterward became Gov- 
ernor-General of India. 

There is occasionall}' a day when, for some cause, you 
are off duty. Make those days like " apples of gold in 
pictures of silver." Economize with tenfold care such days, 
and in a little while you will come to know the wealth of 
time. A few years ago the roof of the United States Mint, 
at Philadelphia, was carefully swept, every crevice whisped 
with a feather, and the broom and slippers of the sweeper 
dusted. The golden dust was coined, and the mint had a 
more profitable day than for many months previous. In 
every business the wheels once in a while clog, and there 
must be a suspension of work for a half day or more; then 
come the holidays. You have been letting ideas fall on 
your mind for weeks, in a confused sort of way; now is 
your time to gather them up and ticket them away. Or a 
choice book has been laid aside because it demanded con- 
secutive reading; now is the time to put in fifteen hours of 
solid study. Depend upon it, this is the very best of recre- 
ation, and every golden hour thus coined will be clear profit. 
There is more to be gained in sweeping the dusty mint of 
the mind than in whisping any other treasury roof in the 
world. 

Few persons can afford to be idle, and those few are 
irregular and spasmodic at every thing they do. Such 
" heaven-bom geniuses " are a law unto themselves, and 
must only be expected to work when the spirit moves them. 
They know no sj'stem, and when they came down from 
heaven, they forgot her first law. It seems to be one mark 



58 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

of the man we call a genius to be immethodical. Take 
Coleridge for illustration. " He passed his whole life out at 
elbows, physically and niorall}'." He dawdled whole weeks 
away, and never found time to finish a single important 
work. He would lie in bed until ten, when he had a busi- 
ness engagement at nine. He would let a friend keep him 
laughing and talking till past midnight, when that very day 
the printers had stopped work because the last pages of his 
essay were not }-et written. He could not even earn money 
enough to support his family. Southey and other friends 
took their hard-earned dollars to keep the wolf from his 
door, while he stalked over the country discoursing his trans- 
cendental philosophy. 

One of the very best ways of economizing time is to work 
by rule. A vast deal more can be accomplished in that 
way than by fitful efforts, Jiowever great. Many men work 
by moods, and are run by gush, who have no genius for that 
way of doing. It is only a subterfuge in which their indo- 
lence hides to keep conscience -quiet, while they laze away 
time. Give me a man who delivers every stroke by the 
tick of the clock, and I will have a man who knows what he 
can do, and who can do a great deal. It is strange so wise 
an old Gascon as Montaigne, should say that " There is no 
course of life so weak as that which is carried on by rule 
and discipline; " and stranger still that so acute an observer 
as Prof. Mathews should seem to agree with him. Now, I 
had as lief say that order and discipline were the weakness 
of an army, as to say that they were the weakness of a 
life. 

It is not necessar}' for a methodical man to pare his rule- 
path into "a razor'^s edge to -walk ony Every good thing 
of the kind may be overdone, and become puritanical. But 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 59 

if one will put his rules within the pale of common sense, it 
will never become necessary " to cross his o-wn rules " to 
keep from growing faint and rusty. There are some men 
so methodical they will not use a compound word, so precise 
they weigh the brown bread and count the beans they eat; 
others so unobserving they never know whether their wives 
wear silk or linsey; so irregular in their habits they are as 
likely to start to their day's work at seven in the evening as 
at seven in the morning. 

After all, it remains true that much of man's success 
depends upon his ability to systematize work, and so arrange 
it that each class of labor will take its place in such a way 
as to prove recreative. 

It is well for one to realize that Hfe is short, but he must 
also feel that it is long enough for every necessary labor. 
Men loiter away their leisure hours, berating fate because 
she has given them no opportunity to become educated. 
Yet such a man as Hugh Miller, with only the rinds of the 
day at his command, found them long enough to acquire the 
knowledge on which he built a lasting fame. The man 
who will undertake nothing for fear of dying next year, had 
as well order a coffin for his manhood. You must plan to 
live fifty years. The niches of the days put in studiously 
for half that time will make you a profound scholar in any 
ordinary branch of learning. Humboldt did not shiver on 
the brink of giant enterprises when he was eighty years 
old. 

If the spare moments of one year are husbanded aright, 
you will never again complain of the lack of time. Time is 
a secondary consideration. As Robert Hall used to say of 
early rising, that .the real question was not what time you 
get up, but what do }"ou do when j'ou get up? So, while 



60 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the length of time is of some consequence, the more import- 
ant question is, How do 3-ou improve your time? Many of 
our greatest men may thank heaven for making the days 
short and their business pursuits long, so that they have 
been compelled to dive for a ten minutes' read, like a robin 
for a worm. The appreciation of the brevit}' of the oppor- 
tunity made them use the moments as precious jewels. 
After Buffbn had saved the hour between six and seven in 
the morning for one year, in writing his history, no money 
could have induced him to return to his old habit of spend- 
ing it in snoring. To that hour he owed the three ablest 
\oluiTies of that noble work which established his fame. 

It is wonderful what results have been achieved in a few 
hours stolen froin a busy life. It is related of a German 
critic that he could repeat the entire Iliad in Greek with 
scarcely an error. This man did not have years, nor even 
months, nor weeks. Never a single day was his own, for 
he was a ph3-sician whose practice drove him " day and 
night ; " but as he drove from one patient to another, he 
snatched the unemplo3'ed moment to commit a line or two, 
and thus in an incredibly short space of time to people who 
are hunting for leisure,. his brain stereot}ped the immortal 
verses that the old bard of Scio once needed to peddle on 
the shores of Greece for bread and hone}'. 

Sir Walter Scott was a government officer, and attended 
to his duties with rigorous exactness; but write he must, 
and all his great novels were composed before breakfast. 
Did not Albert Barnes write commentaries, that have 
reached a sale of over a million copies, during the same 
hours? Jean Paul Richter carried his note-book with him 
wherever he went, and when an idea flashed upon him in 
conversation, he noted it down at once, and laid it away 



ECONOMY OF TIME 61 

for development at the proper time. Did not George 
Stephenson wrest hours from needed repose, to experiment 
in and revolutionize the commerce of the nations by it? 
Did not Bonaparte forego the pleasures of society that he 
might devote himself to the science of war, and by it tri- 
umph over plebeian blood, elevating himself to the lonely 
sublimity of the " Man of Destiny? " 

When an English lord had remained over night at 
Marshfield, he remarked to Mr. Webster, the next morning 
at breakfast, that he did not want their proposed jaunt to 
interfere with his rules of study. " Not at all," replied Mr. 
Webster; " I rise at five, and do all my stud3-ing before 
breakfast, and then I am ready, as the case may be, for 
pleasure or duty." 

We do not recominend such unrelaxing use of time as 
will over-strain body or mind. This is as exhausting in its 
results as over-leisure. Brain-workers sometimes while 
away an hour a day, to the visible benefit of their thinking 
powers. This kind of idling becomes a duty to men in deli- 
cate health. They are compelled to have, like Pascal and 
Pope, "recuperative hours." Their frail tenements of cla}^ 
need the most perfect rest, and much of it. To the 
achievement of their great works, their resting spells were 
the wisest economy of time. Mental or physical workers 
never lose any time by an occasional evening in society. 
After such intermissions they return to work refreshed and 
invigorated. They have broken up the monotony of life 
for a time, and go back to work with a better circulation of 
blood. No man ever gained time by cheating sleep, or at 
the sacrifice of muscle or brain tissue. Robust people may 
stand it for years, and perform great works; but by and by 
it tells. Suppose they do achieve very important results in 



62 TUB GESIUS OF INDUSTBT. 

the overshadowing vastness of their working hours, is it not 
better to husband time, and thereby stimulate vigor, so as 
to enhance the value of results, and, moreover, add length 
of days and happiness to their existence? 

It is a very poor sort of economy that exhausts the last 
ounce of vital fluid in this day's work, so that you must lie 
in bed to-morrow, wrapped in a warming-sheet, swilling 
beef-tea and vitalized phosphates, trying to patch up your 
wasted strength. Since that weird little bit of sallow flesh, 
DeQuincc}', wrote his " Confessions," scores of literary 
hopefuls have taken opium and sat up until four o'clock in 
the morning, thinking that they too might roar like the 
lion; but sour stomachs, and red eyes, and heavy heads are 
about the only things they could record as the legitimate 
results of the trial. 

The above matters of caution are needed by but few. 
The majority of men are more likely to rust out than to 
wear out. When men break down from over-work, it is 
commonly from want of duly ordering their lives, and 
neglect of the ordinary conditions of physical health. Hard 
work, steadily and regularly carried on, seldom hurts any 
one. So organize your labors that you will turn from one 
toil to another with alacrity and zest. If hours of entire 
relief from manual labor and study are necessary, so order 
them that, with Buflbn, even your leisure shall be instruct- 
ive. Length o{ years is no proper test of length of h'fe. A 
man's life is measured by what he does in it. No matter 
how long an idle man lives, he only vegetates. 



' ^ "^^^^^ 




k 



«4 ■ ^^^ fh4\. 



.s^. 




J.^€f ^y\J^5 PJ^^q-Cf. 



It is better to be born lucky than wise. — English. 

Pitch the lucky man into the Nile and he will come up with a fish in his 
mouth — German. 

A great deal that is called luck consists in good managemen*. 

Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus with thy faults; nor make 
Saturn, Mars, or Venus guilty of thy follies. — Sir Thomas Bro-dj/ie. 





. OW much of a man's success is due to favorable 
circumstances, is a difficult matter to define. The 
majority of those great results attributed to luck, 
have come to be recognized as nothing more than oppor- 
tunities well improved. The falling of the apple at New- 
ton's feet was a favorable circumstance. But apples had 
fallen at the feet of a thousand men before. The difficulty 
was, not one of this thousand had been devoting years of 
patient study to the subject of gravitation. But Newton's 
mind was prepared, and the circumstance flashed upon him 
a. discovery already germinating in his brain. 

Bonaparte, doubtless, owed, in some degree, his upward 
start to favorable circumstances. The same circumstances 
had been thrown around a multitude of men during the 
long months of the Reign of Terror; but not another man 
in all the nation had been studying military science and the 
passions of men as he had been studying them. Seized and 
thrown into prison at Marseilles, an officer entered his room 
one night, a couple of hours after midnight, to inform him 
of his release. He found him dressed and seated at his 
table, with maps, books and charts spread out before him. 



66 THE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

'' What! " inquired tlie officer, " are you not in bed yet? " 
"In bed! " Bonaparte replied; " I have had my sleep, and 
am already risen." 

When the Convention said, "Defend us from the mob,"' 
it was the falling of an apple at Newton's feet — lightning 
playing down Franklin's kite-string — fortune flowing into 
previously cut channels. 

To clearly comprehend Napoleon's marked career, one 
must go back to those times when France, without a leader, 
was the football of every gamester. 

The National Convention was in the utmost trepidation ; 
for, in those da3's of anarchy, blood flowed like water, and 
life had no sacredness in Paris. It was not a mob of a few 
hundred straggling men and boys, who, with hootings, were 
to surround their hall and break their windows, but a form- 
idable army of forty thousand men, in battle array, with 
artillery and muskets, headed b}' veteran generals who had 
fought the battles of the old monarch)-, and who, with 
gleaming banners and trumpet tones, were marching down 
from all quarters of the city upon the Tuileries, prepared 
to sack its halls and deluge Paris in blood. The Reign of 
Terror was raging in unabated fury. 

Bonaparte saw Menou march, to quell the insurrection, 
and turn and flee before their insane yells like a cowardly 
poltroon. He ran through the streets to the Tuileries, and, 
ascending the gallery where the Convention was assembled, 
contemplated, with a calm eye and a heart apparently 
unagitated, the scene of consternation there. It was now 
eleven o'clock at night, and the doom of the Convention 
seemed sealed. In the utmost alarm, Menou was dismissed. 
But who could do better.'' Successful resistance seemed 
impossible, and to be unsuccessful was certain death. Bar- 



LUCK AND PLUCK. 67 

ras arose amid the awful stillness of the chamber. " I 
know the man who can defend us," he nervously exclaimed. 
" It is a young Corsican officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose 
military abilities I witnessed at Toulon. He is a man that 
will not stand upon ceremony." 

Barras called him down from the gallery. The Conven- 
tion expected to see a man of soldierly bearing, brusque and 
imperious. To their surprise, there appeared before them 
a small, slender, pale-faced, smooth-cheeked young man, 
apparently about eighteen years of age. The President 
said, " Are you willing to undertake the defense of the Con- 
vention.''" "Yes! "was the laconic reply. After a mo- 
ment's hesitation the President continued, " Are you aware 
of the magnitude of the -undertaking.? " Bonaparte fixed 
that eagle glance upon him, which few could meet and not 
quail before, and replied, " Perfectly; and I am in the habit 
of accomplishing that which I undertake." He then added, 
" I must be entirely untrammeled by any orders from the 
Convention. 

This appointment threw open to Napoleon Bonaparte the 
gate to empire and glory. As the light of morning dawned 
upon the city, the Tuileries presented the aspect of an 
intrenched camp. Guns were posted so as to sweep every 
avenue of approach to the capital. The armed hosts, in 
black masses surged down the narrow streets of the city. 
The members in their seats, in silence and awe, awaited the 
fearful assault, upon the issue of which their lives depended. 
Five thousand troops stood against forty thousand. Napo- 
leon, pale and silent, charged his guns to the muzzle, and 
calmly surveyed the advancing columns, resolved that the 
responsibility of the first blow should fall upon his assailants, 
and that he would take the responsibility of the second. 



68 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

He waited not long. A moment more, and the rushing- 
hosts hurled a volley of bullets at the handful of defenders. 
It was the signal for an instantaneous discharge, sanguinary 
and merciless, from every battery. Explosion followed 
explosion in quick succession, and a perfect storm of 
grape-shot swept the thronged streets. The pavements 
-were covered with the mangled and the dead. The col- 
umns wavered — the storm still continued; they turned — the 
storm still raged unabated; thej' fled in utter dismay in 
every direction — the storm still pursued them. Then 
Napoleon commanded his little division to follow the 
fugitives. As the thunder of their heavy guns reverberated 
along the streets, the insurgents fled in ever}' direction, and 
in an hour the foe was nowhere to be found. Napoleon 
had saved the Convention and established the new govern- 
ment of France. And now, as unmoved as if no event of 
importance had occurred, he re-entered the Tuileries. 

He had passed that " gate," and was entering into his 
possessions. It was a lucky thing for him when he was 
given supreme command of the Convention's army, and so 
it was for Menou when he was given command. But 
Napoleon was equal to his luck, and went to a throne; 
Menou added cowardice to his luck, and went down in 
disgrace. 

There is no lack of fortune; it is scattered plentifully 
along every man's path; it is thrown into men's faces, as 
opportunity was thrust upon Menou; but the majority of 
men, unlike Napoleon, never see their chance and add 
pluck. 

Ver}' few men ever fail on account of a lack of ability, if 
the world is to accept their story. They will sometimes 
grant that they have weak eyes, or a sour stomach, or a 



LUCK AND PLUCK. 69 

torpid liver; but who ever heard a man confess that he was 
a poor logician, or was not able to comprehend the finest 
metaphysical point, or had "a weak head?" We meet 
men who are forever talking about their frail bodies, but 
never knew one to discourse on the frailty of his mind. If 
he can't split as many rails in a day as his neighbor, it is 
because he is not as strong. If he fails to clear as many 
dollars this }'ear as that neighbor, it is not because his mind 
is not as good — not that ; it is because he has had bad luck 

There is not, in the whole vocabular}' of moral, social and 
business bankrupts a single failure but it is laid at the door 
of bad luck. INIen never find themselves to blame for their 
disasters. Every one thinks himself a little pope, and that 
all the rest of mortality are fallible. Thoughtlessness, neg' 
ligence, recklessness, fast horses, big dinners, frequent 
,jaunts from home, leaving one's business to indifferent 
clerks, in^•oicing■ but seldom, and hence knowing little about 
the outlays — these are matters seldom recognized as having 
much influence on the Christmas balance-sheet. Ultimate 
failure, in such instances, is cast upon the side of loss as a 
matter of luck. Bad luck is a treaty that every failure has 
gotten up with himself : whether he be pickpocket or poli- 
tician, some mediocre man of big hopes and no grit, or a 
broken down presidential candidate, he slinks behind this 
barricade at every repulse, feeling that he would have suc- 
ceeded if luck had not turned against him. 

Unfavorable circumstances sometimes surround men, and 
no matter how heroically the)' strive against their fate, the 
relentless monster will not quit until their every prospect is 
ruined. Do not at such a time go to saying, 

" There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them how we will." 



70 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRT. 

A just and righteous Providence could not, in the very 
nature of eternal fitness, lash you to destiny with a hang- 
man's w^hip. You may get into the vise of circumstances, 
and have the last dollar squeezed out, and be w^holly help- 
less. Daniel Drew had been a successful speculator for 
many years. A combination of events, over which he could 
exercise no control, enveloped him, and the old veteran went 
to the wall, divorced of every dollar. Scipio hurled his 
legions against the solid squares of Hannibal, that had stood 
invincible through many battles, and all the fine maneuvers, 
all the shrewd deploys, all the impetuous charges, all the 
prestige of a hundred cloudless victories could not sa^■e the 
Carthaginian. His cohorts, baffled and beaten, fled in utter 
rout, and left Scipio the victor. Twenty million throats 
yelled themselves hoarse for Robespierre. The same voices 
as recklessly cried, " To the guillotine;" and his head rolled 
into the basket with those of common criminals. One can 
no more control the circumstances that surround him, at 
times, than London could control the ravages of the Black 
Plague. 

Then, good fortune pursues some men, and showers her 
smiles upon them, whether they will have thein or not. 
James Lick entered San Francisco with a few thousand dol- 
lars, bought property, and went into business in an ordinary 
way. The vicious little village became a great city, and 
the " squatter " became a sovereign: he died worth millions. 
Byron was a desperate character; he cared for no man or 
thing. He roamed the wild seas over, a moral buccaneer. 
He wrote as he drank, to drown the everlasting torment of 
a soul filled with wretchedness. 



LUCK AND PLUCK. 71 

" Cut from the sympathies of life, 
And cast ashore from pleasure's boisterous surge, 
A wandering, weary, worn, and wretched thing, 
A scorched, and desolate, and blasted soul, 
A gloomy wilderness of dying thought — 
Repined, and groaned, and withered from the earth." 

All he ever did was to fill the cup for self, and on his lips 
the draught ever turned to woe. He never traveled a league 
or wrote a line from desire of posthumous fame. Yet 
honors flowed upon him from every quarter; his advice was 
sought; his smile was courted; offices were proffered him; 
he was given a high seat among the " canonized " bards; — 
he was great in spite of himself. 

Beau Brummel with his lucky sixpence bagged £40,000 
in London and Newmarket. He would oftentimes shut his 
eyes and play his card at random, winning every game. 
There are men with ability far below the average whose 
Midas-like touch turns every thing into gold — physicians who 
don't know an enlargement of the aorta from the black leg, 
yet have double the practice of learned men; lawyers who 
don't know whether Justinian or Justin the Martyr was the 
" Father of Law," whose names are to be found on every 
other case of the court docket ; merchants who are ignorant 
of the common laws of business, whose counters are thronged 
with customers and who die rich; ministers whose heads 
may be full of theology, but whose crowded pews could 
teach them the gospel for many Sundays; teachers who 
could be taught by many of their pupils; and ma3'ors of 
cities who are unable to govern their own families. There 
are fifty gentlemen who are writing M. C. after their names 
this minute who are intellectually inferior to five times fifty 
of their constituents. 



72 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

It is a fact that sheer indolence and an utter lack of "git 
up " is sometimes the source of vast fortune; as with the 
man in the early days of Chicago, who traded a mule for 
an acre lot, and after tramping from pillar to post for twenty 
years, turned up to claim the lot, and through defective tax 
sale the worthless scamp held the propert)', worth $100,000. 
Again, those rough, rocky, non-producing farms in Penns3'l- 
vania that no man of energy would farm, gradually drifted 
into the hands of a shiftless, do-nothing class of people. 
Yet many of these people became millionaires when " oil 
was struck." 

These and a multitude of other instances that coine under 
each man's personal observation have produced a wide- 
spread belief in the potency of luck. One-half the people 
down deep in their hearts ascribe all destiny to luck. Many 
of the most successful men ha\-e been \ery pronounced in 
their faith. Baron Rothschild held that luck was more val- 
uable than energy or abilit}' ; and he would never engage in 
a business enterprise with an unlucky man, no matter how 
great his talents. Bonaparte believed in his star. Clement 
L. Vallandingham, the celebrated politician of Ohio, acci- 
dentalh^ shot himself, and when his physician told him he 
was d^■ing said, it could not be true, for he had not 3'et 
fulfilled his mission. Louis XIV believed that he was born 
on a lucky day, and Frederick the Great thought he would 
never lose a battle if he could commence it before sun-up. 
Cromwell also had a lucky birth-da}% and other luck}' days, 
when he hailed a battle with delight, for his horoscope 
pointed to victory. Yet his lucky day proved to be the 
da}- on which he died. And even sturdy old General Jack- 
son is said to have given hints that he believed in foriii7ie. 

In our days of push and perseverance this confidence in 



LUCE AND PLUCK. 73 

unexplainable success is hardly so pronounced as it was 
among the ancients. Cjesar's faith in his good Inck was as 
unwavering as a Musselman's in the Koran. Once when a 
storm threatened to sink the vessel, he sat unmoved, and 
amid the prayers and tears of the passengers told the pilot 
" You carry Caesar and his good fortune." Cicero held 
that the gods controlled circumstances to the success of Scipio 
and Marcellus. " It was not only their courage," he says, 
" but their fortune which induced the people to intrust them 
with the command of their armies. For there can be little 
doubt but that, besides their great abilities, there was a cer- 
tain _/br/?^«e appointed to attend upon them, and to conduct 
them to honor and renown, and to uncommon success in the 
management of important affairs." Scipio himself concurred 
with Cicero, and belie^■ed that his lucky star eclipsed the 
sun at the battle of Zama, affrighting the Carthaginian 
hosts, and giving him an easy and notable victor}'; for it 
closed the second Punic war victoriously for Rome. Xerxes, 
Hannibal, and Alexander depended much on luck, and 
Pliny says, " Some people refer their successes to virtue 
and ability; but it is all fate." 

When we see Paris set on fire at twenty different places 
at one time and not burn. New York involved in a hundred 
conflagrations and not be seriously injured ; and Mrs. 
O'Leary's cow kick over a lantern and burn Chicago ; when 
we find Jeremy Bentham ascribing his turn of thought and 
conduct through life to the accidental reading of a single 
phrase, " the greatest good of the greatest number ;" when 
we see a man "cut untimely from his mother's womb," 
found sleeping under a tree, when an infant, b}' the side of a 
rattlesnake, in as manv dangers b}' fire as Kate Claxton, 
have three different mates killed by his side in battle, hung 



74 TEE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

by a mob and left for dead, and finally step on a shingle nail 
and die from the wound ; when we learn that Jacob bought 
a birthright and a blessing for a mess of pottage, and after- 
ward worked as a servant for seven years to get the woman 
he loved, and then had to take another and work other seven 
years for Rachel — we are prepared to confess an element of 
chance in human affairs. 

While circumstances may make or mar a man, it is equally 
true that he may often make his circumstances. It is only 
a jealous spirit that finds in luck the secret of others' suc- 
cesses. It is very commonh^ said . " Oh ! General Stout 
was very fortunate in not being cut up at Battlebury ;" 
" Captain Salt is a lucky fellow to escape with his ship from 
that Atlantic cyclone;" " It was a happy accident that gave 
Mr. Puzzlebrain the clew to the working of that machine.'' 
The fox in the fable thought the grapes sour because he 
could not get at them. Suppose old Salt did luckily escape 
the cyclone : by his industry he loaded quickly at Calcutta; 
he had studied the law of the storms for years, and knew 
how to make the most of every vagrant breeze ; he had led 
his officers and crew b}' his own courageous spirit — and it is 
•all these that have caused him to make the quickest trip on 
record, evading the storms and enriching his employers. It 
is the old adage fulfilled, " Fortune favors the brave." 

Admitting every thing that can be reasonably claimed for 
the controlling influence of luck, in nine-tenths of the cases 
the results can be traced to the conduct of the individuals 
themselves. If, through carelessness and indolence, the helm 
is left unmanned, and the vessel careens into a trough of the 
sea, it is too late, when the waves are rolling over the deck, 
to " right her;" circumstances have now the control. There 



LUCE AND PLUCK. 75 

was a time when you could have been ahead of circum- 
stances and managed your destiny. 

Seek to be superior to circumstances by understanding 
their causes and coming. Throttle them in time, making 
of yourself a greater circumstance than any you meet. To 
work straight ahead is not enough; the work inust be put 
in at the right time and in the right way. Two men of the 
same abilities enter a business, having the same aim; one 
reaches great eminence, and the other fails. It is because 
they do not really labor alike. Two boys, twin brothers, at 
the age of sixteen were emploj^ed as clerks in a large retail 
store. They were equals in all noticeable respects: the}' 
decided that one day they would own that store. One of 
the boys did his cellar and package duties with a willing 
step and a smile, solicited custom, and cared for his employ- 
er's interest. The other did what he was told to do, but no 
more, quarreled about his wages, whined because he was not 
promoted, and said that the world owed him a better living. 
Eventually he left the store and went to knock somewhere 
else for luck. The one is now a partner in a wholesale 
house, and the other is clerking in his wife's millinery shop. 

Circumstances are stepping-stones to a man of mettle, by 
which he is enabled to go to any reasonable height. They 
are the blasts which blow over the mountains to toughen the 
sinews of the traveler, that he ma}' surmount the loftiest 
peaks and thus secure the vast resources of the mountain. 
Wolsey would never have been the great cardinal if he had 
not strengthened his muscle b}' lusty blows on beeves' heads, 
and then come to the faith that he could upset circumstances 
as readily. On he stepped by the sheer force of conquering 
obstacles until his ambition became too vast for the church 
and clutched the empire in its grasp. So, Kirke White 



76 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

stepped over battles and bullocks, and conflicts longer and 
more stubborn, until he unexpectedly found his name linked 
with great accomplishment. Michael Faraday believed that 
if he had not been compelled to hammer iron at his father's 
forge, then serve as an apprentice book-binder, and afterw^ard 
struggle for years for bread and knowledge, he would never 
have excelled his master. Sir Humphry Da^y, in lucidly 
expounding the abstruse points in natural science. 

Arkwright and Akenside, Bulwer and Beethoven, Cuvier 
and Correggio, Davy and DeFoe, Eldon and Ellenborough, 
Franklin and Flaxman, Guthrie and Grundj', Herschel and 
Holcroft, Ignatius and Irengeus, Inigo Jones and Rare Ben 
Jonson, Kant and Kepler, Laplace and Lorraine, Miller and 
Milton, Nelson and Newton, Opie and O 'Conner, Pelissier 
and Pestalozzi, Quincy and Quintilian, Richter and Rey- 
nolds, Sixtus V and Sainte-Beuve, Turnip Townsend and 
Taglioni, Upham and Urban II, Vattel and Victor Emman- 
uel, West and Wa3'land, Ximenes and Xenophon, Ypsilanti 
Young, Zwigle and Ziska — by adverse circumstances were 
developed to their great powers; difficulties were the unhewn 
steps by which they went to sublime accomplishinents. 

Some men start toward fortune, but not finding an " open 
sesame," they sit down to mourn their ill luck. Their utter 
stupidness keeps them from seeing the key in the lock that 
they can turn and which, if turned, would open. Dr. John- 
son, who came up to London with a single guinea in his 
pocket, and who once accurately described himself in his 
signature to a letter addressed to a noble lord, as Impransus, 
or Dinnerless, has honestl}' said : " All the complaints 
which are made of the world are unjust: I never knew a 
man of merit neglected; it was generally his own fault that 
he failed of success." 



LUCK AND PLUOE. 77 

Washington Irving held Hke views. ." As for tlie talk,'' 
said he, " about modest merit being neglected, it is too often 
a cant, b}' vv'hich indolent and irresolute men seek to lay their 
want of success at the door of the public. Modest merit 
is, however, too apt to be inactive or negligent, or unin- 
structed merit. Well-matured and well-disciplined talent is 
always sure of a market, provided it exerts itself; but it 
must not cower at home and expect to be sought for. There 
is a good deal of cant, too, about the success of forward and 
impudent men, while men of retiring worth are passed over 
with neglect. But it usually happens that those forward 
men have that valuable quality of promptness and activity 
without which worth is a mere inoperative property. A 
barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion." 

A large proportion of the eminent men of every period 
would have risen to their eminence if their circumstances had 
been wholly difterent. Thus, to take a strong case, it is 
impossible that any combination of circumstances could have 
repressed Christopher Columbus to the level of undistin- 
guished mediocrity. As Gallon says: "If a man is gifted 
with vast intellectual power, eagerness to work and power of 
working, I cannot comprehend how such a man should be 
repressed. The world is always tormented with difficulties 
waiting to be solved, struggling with ideas and feelings to 
which it can give no adequate expression. If, then, there 
exists a man capable of solving those difficulties, or of giving 
a voice to those pent-up feelings, he is sure to be welcomed 
with universal acclamation. We may almost say that he 
has only to put his pen to paper and the thing is done." 

Henry Clay, Andrew Johnson, Webster and Vanderbilt, 
are all men that would have risen to eminence in any nation 
and under any surroundings — they not only possessed work- 



78 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

ing power, but they had drh-ing capacit}-. It was this driving 
capacity that carried them to prominence, and the working 
power sustained them there. 

There are many men of vast possibiUties whittling their 
hves away at some mediocre pursuit because they have no 
driving power — no pluck. Fortune knocks at them, some- 
times until she nearly knocks their heads off, before they will 
see their "tide " has come. George Washington, John Quincy 
Adains and General Grant were men who would have lived 
and died with all their forces pent up in " Utica," if circum- 
stances had not fortunately opened the way and pressed them 
into action. Luckily, when these slumbering giants are once 
aroused, they no longer suffer for want of spirit. Daring 
and pertinacity at once go the front and take charge of 
the man. 

Present ill luck sometimes proves to be the very best of 
luck in the end. England's greatest general, Wellington, 
came near being a revenue clerk. Dissatisfied with the 
slowness of his promotion, he passed from infantry to cavalry 
service twice and back again, without advancement. He 
then applied for a position in the Revenue Office, but to no 
avail. Although disheartened, he was too plucky to leave 
the service and do nothing. He next flung himself into the 
campaign in Flanders, determined to iiieHt promotion. Ten 
years afterward we find him leading seven thousand Sepoys 
and British against thirty thousand Mahrattas, and winning 
a brilliant victory. From that time forward he made cir- 
cumstances. 

The very shrewdest financiers occasionally lose money in a 
venture; the most copious orators are sometimes dumb; the 
best sea-captains have lost vessels; the ablest generals have 
lost battles; and every successful man can point to many 



LUCK AND PLUCK. 79 

failures. But the one that can sustain a defeat, and come 
out of the disaster in a better condition than he went into 
the fight, is sure of promotion. General Sigel seldom won 
a battle, but when he was forced to retreat, woe befell the 
victorious enemy that pursued him. Some men never get 
their harness on until the day is lost; then, like Bonaparte, 
they look at the sun, and if there is enough daylight left, 
they will re-win the battle, and make believe that they only 
lost it in order to gain a greater victory. " In one respect," 
said the Admiral Coligni, "I may claim superiority over 
Alexander, over Scipio, over Caesar. They won great 
battles, it is true; I have lost four great battles, and yet I 
show to the enemy a more formidable front than ever." 

No great work has ever been accomplished purely by 
fortune. There has been a purpose of life toward which the 
actor has addressed his thoughts and preparations; and this 
very preparation enabled him to take advantage of all the 
favorable circumstances that fell in his way. Are not such 
men worthy of luck f A lite without a thought will never 
be favored by fortune. '"An aimless life," says a recent 
author, " can scarcely be other than a comparatively useless 
one. There are thousands of men who have failed of the 
purposes of life, not because they were vicious, not because 
they became criminal, not because they were not clever in 
many respects, but because there was nothing toward which 
they aimed. There are many men who are very genial and 
companionable, who say many things that are worth one's 
hearing, and do many things that are creditable, but who, after 
all, never prosper. They go through life always exciting 
wonder among men that there should be so much in a man, 
and that he should come to so little. Their life is like a 
harness, all the parts of which have been unbuckled from 



80 TEE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

their fellows, and which are so many separate straps heaped 
up in a room. Unless they be put together and placed on 
the horse, he can not draw. There are multitudes of men 
who were never harnessed in their life. They are bearing 
nothing. They are aiming in no direction. They are 
running around in circles of transient thought and feeling. 
They are changing their purposes continually; they are never 
doing much, and are never doing it very well. The onlv 
thing which they accomplish effectuall}' is at length d3-ing; 
and let us hope that they will have a better chance, and that 
they will reap the advantage of their experience in the other 
life." 

No one can have success who despises trifles. " If a straw," 
says Dryden, " can be made the instrument of happiness, he 
is a wise man who does not despise it." The atomic theor}- 
is the true one. The universe is but an infinite attrition of 
particles. The grandest whole is resolvable into fractions; 
or, as the ditty has it — 

" Little drops of water, little grains of sand, 
Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land." 

A gnat can drive an elephant mad. The corals can 
founder a navy. So in most lives, it is not some colossal 
thing, but the turning of a straw that drives the engines 
forward or backward. When we see that Madame Gal- 
vani discovered galvanism by observing the result of an 
electric spark accidentally dropped on a dead frog; that 
Argand's lamp was discovered by the chance holding of a 
tube over a candle; that "a Whig ministry was hurled 
from power in England by the spilling of some water on a 
lady's gown; " that Franklin's whole destiny was altered b}- 
the accident of a tattered copy of Cotton Mather's " Essavs 
to do Good ; " that Sir John Moore passed, b}' the narrow 



LUCK AND PLUCK. 81 

channel of a few. careless stanzas, penned b}' an ordinar\' 
Irish parson, from the shores of oblivion to the isles of 
immortality; that the pain produced by a thistle warned the 
Scotch army of the approach of the Danes; that the cackle 
of a goose saved Rome from the Gauls; that flies attacking 
a congress of statesmen below their knee breeches hastened 
the signing of the Declaration which gave birth to our own 
mighty republic — we learn that little things, in some nice 
situations, turn the scale of fate. 

Some eminent men have persistently asserted that there 
is no such thing as luck, that men are at all times the arbi- 
ters of their own fortunes, and that if an unkind fate over- 
takes them it is because of their imprudence and careless- 
ness. A critical observer has written: "If a man will put 
his mind into his business and dri\e it with energy, bad 
luck will never overtake hini." Great men never despise 
small things. ^Michael Angelo was one dav explaining to 
a visitor at his studio what he had been doing since his last 
visit: "I have retouched this part, polished that, softened 
this feature, brought out that muscle, given some expression 
to this lip, and more energy to that limb." " But these are 
trifles," remarked the visitor. '' It may be so," replied the 
sculptor, " but recollect that trifles make perfection, and 
perfection is no trifle." 

Many of the most distinguished names in the world's 
history were nearly half a century in attracting the admir- 
ing notice of mankind; as witness Cromwell and Cavour, 
and Bismarck and Palmerston, and the elder Beecher. But 
their star will never die; their works, their influence on the 
age in which the}' lived, will be perpetuated to remote 
generations. This should be encouragement to all plodders, 
for their time may come. 



82 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRi'. 

In the battle of life we may be drawn as conscripts, but 
our courage or our cowardice depends on ourselves. To be 
a conscript is no invidious thing if circumstances have cast 
us there; but not to do our duty is shame anywhere. Every 
man is placed in some degree under the influence of events 
and of other men; but it is for him to decide whether he 
will rule or be ruled by them. But they will rarely over- 
whelm him if he put up a stout and manful resistance. 
Duty was the one word which rang in Wellington's ear, 
and, following its lead with the pluck and persistence of an 
iron man, he overcame every difficult}^, and became the 
conqueror of Bonaparte. Hannibal fought Rome no more 
desperately as general than he would have done as private. 
It was this spirit that made Nelson write when he was 
about to take charge of the finest fleet in the world, " The 
Admiralty may order me a. cock-boat, but I will do my 
duty." "Captain Miller," said Scott, at Lundy's Lane, " can 
you take that battery?" "/'// try, Sir,'''' was the answer. 
And the gallant Lawrence cried, with indomitable pluck, 
"Don't give up the ship!" almost with his latest breath. 
It is next to impossible for this kind of a spirit to fail in 
the end. These are the men who make out of them- 
selves a greater circumstance than any they meet. 

Fortune stood against Girard, Astor and Gray, but 
whether the crops were plentiful or failed, whether flood 
or drought, whether flush or bankrupt times, if they could 
not control events, they trimmed their sails to suit them, 
and so benefitted by every circumstance. They filled their 
bins out of the field where other men garnered nothing, 
and died worth millions. Washington, Cyrus and Caesar 
knew how to organize victory out of defeat, and hence 
always forced circumstances to bless them. It was the 



LUCK AND PLUCK. 83 

same kind of a hand that carved the Venus de Medici, 
painted the Last Supper, and wrote the ^neid. Paradise 
Lost, and Festus. Morse obtained his telegraph, Fuhon 
his steamboat, and FrankHn his Hghtning by being greater 
than circumstances. The men who have gained true 
success in any department of hfe have not been men who 
placed any great reliance on luck. They never believed 
that the world owed them a living; rather, they believed 
that they owed the world something, and must quickly be 
about paying it. While men are the sport of circumstances 
one time in ten, nine times in ten circumstances are but clay 
in their hands out of which they can mold their life to 
wealth and honor if they will. 

Henry Ward Beecher once hit off this thought in the fol- 
lowing terse and vigorous style: 

" Do not expect a legacy. Do not expect a division of 
your father's estate. Be honorable; be manly; cultivate a 
spirit of independence; be proud that }'ou are working out 
your own fortune. There is a pride which is ignominious, 
and there is a pride which is honorable. I love to hear a 
man say, and I honor a man who says, standing respected 
and strong in life, ' I am not indebted to fortune for my 
property. I earned it by the sweat of my brow. I baptized 
every dollar of it.' Money so consecrated by honest work 
usually stays by a man — and it usually has a man to 
stay by. 

" Rely on yourselves; do not rely on luck. ' But do you 
believe in luck.^' Oh yes, I believe in it — of course I do. 
' Well, then, why not rely upon it.? ' He that had a good 
father and mother, had good luck. He whose father and 
mother whipped him enough, had good luck. He whose 
father and mother would not let him have his own way in 



84 TUE OENIUS OF INUU-^riiY. 

his lower faculties, and compelled him to use his higher ones, 
had good luck. He who has a good appetite and good 
digestion, has good luck. He who rises early and toils late, 
and never thinks of any thing except that which belongs to 
him, and which he has fairly earned, has good luck. The 
man who does not quarrel has good luck. The man who 
by his kindness makes everybody about him like him, has 
good luck. Good faculties with good habits induced on 
them are good luck. This is the kind of good luck for a 
man to seek alter. I never knew a man that wanted to 
shirk all through life that had good luck. I have known 
men who were laz}' and tattered, and drove their cow to 
pasture in the morning (not being much more intelligent 
than she), and shuffled back again, wishing the dew was not 
so wet, and wishing the}' could find a quarter of a dollar, 
which they never did find — except one man that I know of, 
who found what he thought was a quarter, and turned it in 
his hand, and, seeing that it was an old Spanish eighteen- 
and-three-quarter-cent piece, said: 'If any body else had 
found this, it would have been twent3--five cents! ' I have 
known shiftless men who were forever hunting for good luck, 
but who never found it. Luck is in vigor. Luck is in 
courage. Luck is in good hard sense. Luck is in work. 
Do not trust to any other luck than this. The fool's luck, 
lottery luck, good-fortune luck, superstitious luck — do not 
trust to that. If there is any luck, it is in the heart, in the 
head, in the hand." 

However much a man may ascribe his failures to luck, it 
alwa\-s comes poorl}' off when he is successful. The one 
that talks the most about his bad luck is silent as the tomb 
about good luck. For every dollar made, every good work 
accomplished, every triumph achieved in business, we find a 



LUCK AND PLUCK. 85 

cause in our own merit. In a lordly sort of way we blink 
out the whole potenc}' of luck, and say, "All the glory be 
unto us." Even if shown that we were the sport of circum- 
stances in the beginning we will never stop until we con- 
vince others that it was our wisdom that enabled us to grap- 
ple with the opportunity, and our well-directed labors alone 
that could forge destin}^ out of such small materials. 

Louis Napoleon was the " luckiest " man that ever lived. 
Good and bad luck followed him hand in hand through his 
whole career. He was born an illegitimate child, and had 
a king to father him. He began at Strasburg an effort to 
overthrow the French government, which proved abortive 
and covered him with ridicule; whereupon he turned his 
attention to philosophy and gained esteem by his writings. 
Upon the o\erthrow of Louis Philippe, he was elected a 
member of the Constituent Assembly from four different 
departments. The lameness of his first speech pro\oked 
Thiers to call him /ete de debris — a wooden head, and Victor 
Hugo, in lofty scorn, dubbed him Napoleon the Little. 
Nevertheless he was elected President of the Republic, a few 
months later, by four million majority. The Assembh' 
undertook to wrest the power of the state from his hand ; he 
overthrew it, cast its members into prison, and appealed to 
the people; they confirmed his acts, and extended his presi- 
dency ten years by a majorit}' of six million votes. The 
people had revolted and bled for republicanism, and were 
prepared to die rather than have a monarchy. Yet on the 
2 1 St and 2 2d of November, 1852, they declared him " hered- 
itary Emperor of the French, b}' the grace of God and by 
the will of the nation " — by a vote of eight million to a few 
thousand. Condemned by all the world, his reign was the 
most brilliant France ever knew. Exiled to England once 



86 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

more, he died at Chiselhurst, honored by potentates and 
powers, while France was bleeding from intestine strife. His 
life affords an enlarged view of what occurs to every man. 
For no doubt, as Byron said, sometimes 

"Men are the sport of circumstances, when 
The circumstances seem the sport of men." 

While Napoleon was tossed on the capricious waves of 
French favor, and on several occasions bowed his head to 
the fury of passing storms, yet, as a whole, he outgeneraled 
misfortune, and by his indomitable pluck stamped himself on 
France the most eminent success of the nineteenth century. 

Whatever else may be said of luck, there is never any bad 
luck in kindness. The oily tongue and personal magnetism 
of Marlborough could smooth grim-\'isaged war in the per- 
son of Charles XII of Sweden and turn his warrior-heart 
from the humbling of a nation. Sir Walter Raleigh flung 
his laced jacket into a puddle, and won a proud queen's favor. 
Napoleon III never forgave an enem}^ yet he taxed the 
Empire that he might provide for those who treated him 
civilly during his exile and penury. " It is said that the cele- 
brated miser. Jack Elwes, to save butchers' bills, made a 
point of eating his own sheep from head to tail, even though 
the mutton almost crawled off the plate before it was con- 
sumed. And yet the same sordid being gave hundreds to 
advance the interests of an ofKcer whose manners had pleased 
him in a few casual interviews; thus showing that, when all 
else had failed, the oiled key of courtes}' could force back 
the rusty wards even of the miser's double-locked heart." 

A word of kind encouragement is oftentimes worth inore 
to a )7oung man than a fortune of twenty thousand dollars. 
The sympathizing counsel of William Makepeace Thack- 
eray gave hope and nerve, and finally led on to fortune. 



LUCK AND rmCK. 87 

more young men than the money of any Croesus has ever 
done. The wealth of Aster or Stewart could not have helped 
and encouraged' an enslaved race on the road to libert}- as the 
burning words of William Lloyd Garrison did. Alexander 
owed more of his success to his tutor and friend Aristotle 
than to the crown of Philip. Harriet Martineau was made 
an authoress by one encouraging sentence from her brother. 

Neglect of duty in some way is the most fruitful source 
of ill luck. Bonaparte lost Waterloo and his prestige for- 
ever by his causeless delay's and carelessness in directing his 
lines of attack. Sheridan, with the income of a prince, was 
always in terror of duns, through his silly expenditures. 
Coleridge, with brains enough to stock a thousand men, 
thoughtlessly frittered away his genius, as Lamb wittily 
said, "on forty thousand fragments," and left nothing to pos- 
terity but his debts and his rubbish. 

That man is to be pitied who is too cowardly to go out 
and do battle for an honest li\ing in the field of human 
exertion. He will never have good luck. He lost luck 
when he lost his pluck. Good pluck is good luck. It is bad 
luck not to have a definite aim in life. It is bad luck to feel 
above your business. It is bad luck to be ashamed of jour 
poverty. It is bad luck to indulge in high living, or idleness, 
or dishonest}', or brawls, or expect a dollar or an honor that 
you do not fairly earn. It is bad luck for any young man 
to drink liquor, and eat tobacco, and smoke, and swear, and 
visit soda fountains, and cream saloons, and theaters, and 
brothels, and chase after the fashions, and fret and scold, 
and abuse people, and run other people's business and neg- 
lect his own. It is pluck which weaves the web of life and 
turns the wheel of fortune. It is pluck that amasses wealth, 
crowns men with honors, and fors^es the links of life. 




•cfi<;)^(;)3]j^^ ^A n^mW 

Be what nature intended vou for, and you will succeed. — Sidney Smif/i. 

The roughest road often leads to the snnoothest fortune. — Franklin. 

The parent who does not teach his child a trade, teaches hinn to be a 
th I e f. — Brahminical Scriptures. 



In every work that he began 
prospered. — ^ Chron. x\.\i, 21. 



he did it with all his heart, and 



Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet per- 
haps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soUs, where there is 
sometimes a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. — Sviift. 





&oo^iT}| ^ y<^ 



¥^] HE choice of a profession, as a necessity to success, 
- is based upon two fundamental principles, one of 

which is, that he who will not labor shall not eat. 
This is so immutable that e\-ery man is compelled either to 
work or to worr}'. There is no \-alue which has not become 
such through labor. There is no achievement dispropor- 
tioned to, the eflbrt spent upon it. There is no life through 
which mankind is better or happier which has not wrought 
its beneficence through patient endeavor. All that we call 
progress — whether civilization or art, education or prosperity 
— from the culture of a barley-stalk to the construction of a 
steamship; from the sculpturing of a statue to the perfecting 
of a man — depends on labor. Activity is the cradle in 
which God rocks the universe. All that gives peace and all 
that secures joy springs from hard, honest labor. 

There are profounder reasons, then, for choosing a profes- 
sion than simply the getting of bread. We are here, and 
we are men. We have our way to inake through more 



90 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

than mere animal life. We are responsible in proportion to 
our possibilities. He who hides his talent will assuredly 
pay the penalty. . There is no discharge in this war of life 
till the end come. If you seek contentment and rest, it is 
only to be found in the grave, and Beecher's answer to the 
no\ice who wrote him, desiring an easy place, suits you. 
"Young man," said he, "I have thought over your case 
thoroughly, and know of no place for you but in Greenwood. 
There nothing will ever trouble you but the worms." Charles 
Lamb sighed for years to be freed from his arduous duties 
in the India Office. When at last released, he bounded out 
into the world like an uncaged bird. " I would not go back 
to my prison," he exclaimed to a friend, " for ten thousand 
pounds a year. I am free! I am free! Positively, the best 
thing a man can do is nothing." Before three years had 
fled, a change came o'er the spirit of his dream. Though 
toasted and toadied to by his ardent admirers, he found that 
his slavery at the desk was a blessing compared with " noth- 
ing to do." To escape from despair, and stop the mind 
from preying on itself, he gladly bound himself out to labor 
again. Too much leisure is the black spirit that has ruined 
the life of many a noble man. " An idle brain is the devil's 
workshop." 

The second principle, making it a necessity that there 
should be choice made of a profession, is that each person 
has a natural aptitude for some calling. A mistake in 
choosing a calling is the cause of more failures than an}' 
other one thing. Many drift into a business b}- force of sur- 
rounding circumstances; some by the advice of solicitous 
friends, or, as is too often the case, impelled by their own 
ambitious promptings. We should be surprised at many 
gettino: on as well as they do, working outside of the harness 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 91 

nature made for them, did we not have such great confi- 
dence in the efficacy of pluck and perseverance. But what 
a toilsome journey do they make of it, rowing against the 
current of nature! Only sheer necessity drives them on. 
They live and die dissatisfied with their lot, never suspecting 
the true cause. One-half the labor expended, if put into the 
channel of their natural tendencies, might have brought 
them gratifying success, and crowned them with a peaceful 
life. Men, under the spur of discontent, often leave their 
adopted calling to seek one more profitable; but, having 
taken their departure, on they drive from bad to worse, until 
what little chance they had to succeed in something dies 
away. Then they lament their fate, and, quite likel}-, look 
with jealousy and sourness on those about them. Thus, the 
world is becoming filled with these unfortunates. They 
have violated the law of their organization; they have 
under-estimated their vocation and over-strained their capac- 
ity. The physicians are right : more men are killed h\ 
worry than by work. And if many die through an o\er- 
reach in avarice, many also die through an under-reach in 
abilit}". It is the consciousness of being incompetent to hold 
the wheel of life that sends despair to the hearts of men. 
If all this blundering is to be remedied, vocations must be 
chosen adapted to men's capacities. The laws of being are 
so adjusted and ordered as to make this compulsory. On 
no other basis can we build lofty and well-founded hope. 

It is a very common thing to see an ambitious father edu- 
cate his son lor the law, fondly anticipating the day in which 
he shall rival William M. Evarts, when really he has no more 
penchant for Blackstone than Edwards, the naturalist, had 
for the Scotch pedagogue. Another boy is guided by his 
father into the cutting of hoop-poles and the cleaving of 



92 THE GENlU.'i Ob' INUUtirilV. 

shingles, when his dexterity in opening up knott}^ questions, 
his abihty in making the worse appear the better cause, and 
his ineradicable disposition never to know when he is 
whipped, all indicate that he was intended to control the 
judgment of a jury. There are pastors breaking the_ bread 
of life with feeble hands, confessedly additional burdens on 
the groaning walls of Zion, who freely acknowledge their 
inability to wake slumbering souls to righteousness; but with 
a devotedness and self-sacrifice worthy of Divine commis- 
eration, they decide it to be their duty to go on. As car- 
penters, they might frame a house so that " the whole body 
would be fitly framed together and compacted by that which 
every joint supplieth; " but as builders tor God they are fail- 
ures. There are men selling goods who ought to be preach- 
ers; horseshoers who could better diagnose the patient's 
infirmity; teachers who should be journalists; and plowers 
of land who by nature were adapted to break soil in the 
tough field of thought. 

The number of men who, all their life-time, have been 
warring with natural impulses is immense. We have men 
and women, of every calling and character, who, with 
chagrin, are eyeing their rivals as they scale the cliffs of 
honor, while they plod along over painful levels. Not only 
have they committed a fraud on their worthy occupation; 
they have crowded out those who might have become win- 
ners. " If you choose to represent the various parts of life," 
saj's Sidney Smith, " b}' holes in a table, of different shapes 
— some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong 
— and the persons acting these parts, by bits of wood of 
similar shapes, we shall general!}' find that the triangular 
person has got into the square hole, the oblong one into the 



CIIOOSINIJ A VOCATION. <>3 

triangular, while the square person has squeezed himself into 
the round hole." 

True, there are some persons of such splendid talent, such 
practical genius, that they shine in an}- undertaking. Frank- 
lin was a good typesetter, foreman and editor, as well as a 
great philosopher. So was Horace Greele}-. Robert Coll- 
j-er was a good blacksmith and is a famous preacher. John 
Dolland, the silk weaver, gained a seat among the scientific 
by his invention of the achromatic telescope. Winckelman, 
the shoemaker, by his antiquarian researches, enriched the 
world; and Edwards (mentioned before in this chapter), 
another shoemaker, shows a most enviable entomological 
record, poking into every nook and crann}', and wading all 
day long, waist-deep, for bugs and worms. Agassiz is said, 
by Albert Barnes, to have been master of five special depart- 
ments of science. But while a few men of unflagging ener- 
gies and double genius ha\e mastered more than one calling 
— working for bread with the right hand and following their 
soul's desire with the left — it does not by any means follow 
that all can do so Many of these men, even, might have 
attained still greater results by less divided effort. At any 
rate, the old adage, "Jack of all trades and master of none," 
is not to be scorned. 

It is not often a professional man is required to perform 
manual labor. In fact, society has come to such a pass that 
if he works at a trade, he is pronounced a failure. Occa- 
sionally, an unusually energetic man ma}- do so without pro- 
voking much remark. The prevalence of this censorship is 
unfortunate, for the straits to which professional men are 
often driven for support ar6 distressing. There are ver\- few 
who possess courage enough to lay aside their professional 
pride, and pour forth the sweat of their brow tor bread and 



94 THE GENU'S OF INDUSTRY. 

butter. And yet in that ver}- humiliation many men have 
found the discipHne that enables them to triumph. " There 
is no more fatal error," says Hugh Miller, " into which a 
workingman can fall than the mistake of deeming himself 
too good for his humble employments, and yet it is a mis- 
take as common as it is fatal. I had already seen several 
poor, wrecked mechanics, who believing themselves to be 
poets, and regarding the manual occupation by which alone 
they could live in independence, beneath them, had become, 
in consequence, little better than mendicants, too good to 
work for their bread, but not too good virtually to beg it; 
and looking upon them as beacons of warning, I determined 
that with God's help, I should give their error a wide offing, 
and never associate the idea of meanness with that of an 
honest calling, or deem m^'self too good to be independent." 

Herschel was a musician, and followed this business for a 
living until his fame as an astronomer compelled him to 
retire from the pursuit. He played the oboe at Bath, and 
while the dancers were resting, he would go out and take a 
peep at the heavens through his telescope, and quietly return 
to his work again. While thus a player tor bread, and a 
scientist in his leisure hours, he discovered the Georgium 
Sidus. His abilities were at once conceded, and a livelihood 
ceased to be the chief object of his life. The stars gave 
their interpreter a better support than the dancing-room. 
The oboe-player was called away from his wind-instrument 
to teach the world astronom}'. 

An honest and vigorous nature will make itself felt in any 
vocation. " It is pertectl}' indifferent," saj's Goethe, "within 
what circle an honest man acts, provided he do but know 
how to understand and fill out that circle." But gi-eat tal- 
ents alone can not fill out that circle. When Sir Joshua 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 9g 

Reynolds said, " What one man has done any man can do," 
and that " there is no Hmit to the proficiency of an artist 
except the Hmit of his own painstaking," he was certainly 
feeling the moving of his own mighty powers rather than 
observing the character and fate of men about him. 

It is not necessary to possess shining talents. Of course 
one wants to be supported by a strong, original bias, if he 
aspires to be master, as thinker, or artist, or actor' so strong, 
that every other work were purgatory to him, and this, 
though followed through pinching poverty, were paradise 
itself. But, especially in the money-getting lines, a clever 
turn in some direction, backed by good shrewd sense, is the 
great requirement. In most departments of life a manful 
performance of dut}' brings the surest reward. " If a boy 
is not clever." says Arnold, ''this is a hint from Nature to 
the parents not to assign him a path of life where superlative 
excellence is required, with a view to success, but to find 
him an avocation amid the 

'"Girdles of the middle mountains, happy realms of fruit 
and flower, 
Distant from ignoble weakness, distant from the heights 
of power.' 

If the parents arrogate the right to determine the profession 
for their child, they will often find themselves in great diffi- 
culty, especially with that child who shows no remarkable 
predilection for any employment. Parents commit a great 
crime when, thinking the child a fool, they do not hesitate 
to tell him so. If a son is found not to be doing well in any 
particular walk of life, that is simply a sign that there is 
some other walk in life in which he will probablv do exceed- 
ingly well." An English father found that his son was 
a great failure as a midshipman. He began at once to 



96 THE GENIUS OB' INDUSTUY. 

study the bent of the boy's mind, and concluded he would 
make a lawyer, and as a lawyer he rose to the top of his 
profession. 

All admit that to some degree circumstances shape the 
man. We can all point to persons within the circle of our 
acquaintance who would have been Catholics at Rome, 
Mohammedans at Constantinople, and Buddhists at Pekin. 
" Have not the raw breezes from snow-clad heights ever 
been held an inspiration to the soul of liberty.^ " Have not 
the rays of an equatorial sun been the smith that forged 
the chains of slavery.' Is not the agriculturist most fre- 
quently reared on his own soil.' Is not the sailor often born 
beside the heaving expanse which he chooses for a home.' 
All the differences of character or capacity can not be explained 
by the action of extraneous influences, 3'et we are forced to 
admit that mind and heart are always moulded, to a degree, 
by surrounding circumstances. 

There is a magical action and reaction of minds on one 
another. Contact with the good never fails to bless; con- 
tact with the impure never fails to blight. Sir Peter Lely 
made it a rule never to look at a bad picture. He said his 
pencil always caught a taint if he did. There are critical 
moments in the life when impressions are made that gi^■e 
color to all subsequent actions. The mind of ever}' youth 
is peering into the future with fermenting solicitude— he is 
anxiously waiting for the impregnating idea that shall fer- 
tilize it. He has been tied down to the routine of some dull 
pursuit, but is now beginning to feel the throbbings of a new 
being. As yet he knows not which way to go. The 
supreme moment of his life has arrived when he reads the 
biography of some Hercules, whose inviting footprints are 
laid bare to the top of glory ; or in forming the acquaintance 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 97 

of some man eminent in the life toward which his waking 
powers are blindly staggering. It is for art, and he forms 
the friendship of an artist; it is for engineering, and some 
engineer takes a liking to him because he is apt ; it is for 
letters, and some literary man gives him the freedom of his 
library; it is for merchandizing, and a merchant, thinking he 
would make a good clerk, employs him : these are all recog- 
nitions that form a crisis in the life. " I have traveled much," 
says Lord Shelburne, " but I have never been so influenced 
by personal contact with any man; and if ever I accomplish 
any good in the course of my life, I am certain that the 
recollection of M. de Malesherbes will animate my soul." 

Thus it was with Haydn; Handel re-created him the first 
time he played in his presence. Haydn burned with an 
insatiable desire for music after this, and but for this circum- 
stance, he himself believed that he would never have written 
the " Creation." Scarlatti was another of Handel's offspring. 
He followed him all over Italy, and generously said his brush 
had been tipped by Handel. Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, 
had so inspired the Turks by his ^■alor that, when dead, they 
wished to possess his bones, hoping to receive some of the 
courage he possessed while living. Douglass bore the Jieart 
of Bruce with him on the crusades. On seeing a knight 
surrounded by the Saracens, he threw the hero's heart into 
the thickest of the fight, " Pass first in light, as thou wert 
wont to do, and Douglass will follow thee or die! " 

Correggio discovered himself in the biography of Michael 
Angelo, and as he felt his soul to be en rapport with that of 
the artist, he exclaimed, " And I too am a painter." Ben- 
jamin Franklin early read Cotton Mather's book, •' Essays 
to do Good." This made such a profound impression on his 
youthful mind that he found himself continualh' repeating its 



yS TIIl'^ GEM us OF INDUSTRY 

maxims. In lute }ears he pronouneed those essays to be the 
father of all his usefulness. Samuel Drew avers that he 
caught inspiration from Franklin, and moulded his morals 
and business habits from Franklin. One reading of " Plu- 
tarch's Lives " drew forth a passion from Alfieri, which 
made him dedicate his life to literature. When Ignatius 
Lo3'ola was lying wounded after a severe battle, he asked for 
a book to read. " The Lives of the Saints " was given him. 
Its perusal aroused a religious '' calm " in his mind; he deter- 
mined to forsake the ambitions of war; and, in the abjectest 
poverty and humility, he devoted himself to the church, 
founding a religious order. The " Life and Writings of 
John Huss " drove Martin. Luther into the Reformation. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds attributes his first impulse toward art 
to reading Richardson's account of a great painter. Iloydon 
was aroused to the same pursuit by afterward reading the 
career of Reynolds as an artist. 

These illustrations do not assert that mere admiration for 
" great genius " is all that is necessar}- to call out the 
powers of a new life. Admiration alone can not make a 
creditable imitation of any 'model. And imitation is not 
greatness. No mere imitator can build a lasting success. 
One may form the acquaintance of a score of eminent men, 
and not have a single impulse aroused; he may read a hun- 
dred biographies, and ne\er have his soul touched. It is 
all because none of these find a kindred character within. But 
when the heroism of these actors dawns upon the senses, and, 
striking the chords of the soul, finds a response there, then 
it is that the acquaintance is the fortuitous circumstance of 
that life. Then the potencies of the soul are evolved — the 
possibilities of the character are revealed, and the man takes 
the place for which his natural abilities have fitted him. If 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 99 

however, you should find that all the studies of biography 
and the companionship of rising men fail to start you on the 
highway of fame, take with unabated energy the humbler 
route assigned you, do with all your might what falls to your 
lot, and do it with grace and lofty countenance; for this itself 
is a rare token of true manhood. 

Fortunately for the world, many of her most gifted 
children possessed a genius that never forsook them. The}- 
were superior to circumstances. They did not wait for some 
one to arouse them. They came into being quick and hot 
for action. The boy West, at seven years of age, struck by 
the beauty of a sleeping infant he was rocking, forthwith 
seized paper and drew its portrait in red and black ink. 
Richard Wilson's sport when a boy was to slip into the hall 
up stairs and draw figures of men and horses on the wall 
with the charred end of a stick. Gainsborough would run 
off from school at the age of ten, and go sketching in the 
woods of Sudbury. Hogarth was distressingly dull in his 
school studies, and his exercises on the blackboard and slate 
were more noted for their embellishments than for the exam- 
ples themselves. John Quincy Adams made good speeches 
at the age of seven. Audubon lo\-ed the birds and '' took 
to the woods" irresistibly. These boys gave early premoni- 
tions of their coming art. And who will say that to have 
curbed them would not have dwarfed them.'' "It is said 
that when Rachel, the actress," writes Prof. Mathews, 
" threw a table-cloth round her person, she was draped on 
thg instant with a becomingness which all the modistes that 
ever fractured staj'-lace, or circumlocuted crinoline, never 
imparted to the female figure before. She had a genius for 
it, as Brummell had for tying his cravat. Thousands choked 
themselves in trying to imitate the Beau's knot, but in vain; 



100 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the secret died with him, and is now among the lost 

arts." 

But in the most of persons "natural selection" is not so 
strong that it will override all barriers, and lead them from 
infancy. The fact is, the great mass of men are never stirred 
by strong promptings in any direction. The thousands stand 
at the opening of the ways, with vacant eyes and heavy 
hands, like Micawber, waiting for something to turn up. 
For these we write. To be successful, one must search out 
his natural inclinations and obey them. Deeply hidden, they 
may be, under the rubbish your surroundings have- heaped 
on you, but down there, latent, lies an inborn predisposition 
that is able to carr}' 3'ou to success, in spite of caste, or igno- 
rance, or poverty. 

It has been said that there is no such thing as natural apti- 
tude; that circumstances and education decide every man's 
fate, Buffon, that prodigy of energy, says, " Genius is 
patience; " but then he was modestly writing his own auto- 
biography. Carlyle says, " Nature has not set any man in 
molds;" that every man could write poetry if he liked — 
and then explains for himself by saying he doesn't like 
poetry. Pope and Bryant must have liked poetr}', for they 
wrote, at sixteen, articles that Thomas Carlyle, with kW his 
splendid talents and wealth of imagination, did not surpass 
at seventy. Chesterfield, who was bent on polishing men, 
said you could cultivate a man into an}- thing. He lavished 
patient years in trying to train his son, Stanhope, into agree- 
able manners, and was finall}' compelled to leave him miser- 
ably rude. Cultivation could no more make Stanhope a 
gentleman than want of it could make Chesterfield a clown. 
This plea fails, especially when we find disposition asserted 
before education, and in opposition to all training. West 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 101 

was not educated as an artist; he did not so much as have 
the benefit of paintings on the wall. The father of Pascal 
undertook to give him a purely literary education, avoiding 
the exact sciences; but the boy stole away and drew conic 
sections on the ground, and had mastered Euclid to the 3 2d 
proposition before his father discovered it. Dryden revealed 
his own steps, as well as those of many others, when he 
wrote : 

"What the child admired, 
The youth endeavored, and the man acquired." 

"We are not surprised," saj's a writer, "to hear from a 
schoolfellow of the Chancellor Somers that he was a weakly 
boy, who always had a book in his hand, and never looked 
up at the play of his companions; to learn from his affec- 
tionate biographer that Hammond, at Eton, sought oppor- 
tunities of stealing away to say his prayers; to read that 
Tournefort forsook his college class that he might search 
for plants in the neighboring fields; or that Smeaton, in 
petticoats, was discovered on the top of his father's bam, in 
the act of fixing the model of a windmill which he had con- 
structed. These early traits of character are such as we 
expect to find in the cultivated lawyer who turned the eyes 
of his age upon Milton; in the Christian whose life was one 
varied strain of devout praise; in the naturalist who enriched 
science by his discoveries; and in the engineer who built the 
Eddystone lighthouse." 

We are all able frequently to read a man's character with 
reasonable accuracy by watching his actions and noting his 
slightest tendencies. It is no more true of men than it is in 
natural histor}', that -'the toad, ugly and venomous, wears 
yet a precious jewel in its head." There is structural har- 
mony in the whole physical man, as there is in the intel- 



102 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTliY. 

lectual Nature does not deal in paradoxes; she coins men 
of different metals, and puts her mint stamp upon them, that 
they may pass current at their true \alue among the observ- 
ant. Men of keen sight and judgment read their fellows as 
they would read the open pages of a book. This faculty is 
enjoyed by all leaders of men. 

The proclivities of the mind may be strong though latent ; 
and the greater in that case becomes the necessity for care- 
ful inspection. It calls for the skill of the examiner. He 
may search long before he concludes upon any special merit, 
but there is a bonanza somewhere in every man. There is 
no man who may not excel in some pursuit. Don't let ambi- 
tion dictate it; don't seek a business because it is creditable. 
Better be the king of tish peddlers than a blatant politician 
who is searching after undying fame, and whose only con- 
ception of success is office; who is too indolent to work; 
who affects to be a servant of the people; whose poverty 
forces him to li\e on bread and water between elections, and 
•'sponge" on his friends during the canvass; a confirmed 
mendicant, without energy or grace, whose friendship is 
valueless, and whose name is Political Tramp. Whatever 
nature intended 3'ou for, that be; and be proud that she 
intended you for somethino-. It may be to run the biggest 
trade in your communit}', or it may be to climb tarred rope; 
but do it with all your might, and there's victory in it. 

No man can be said to have a natural bias for a pursuit 
he dislikes; and to learn to love it is a thing impossible. A 
great work was never any thing short of a labor of love to 
him that accomplished it. The sentiment, " Our wishes 
are presentiments of our capabilities," is a truthful maxim, 
and full of encouragement. If the reigning passion of the 
mind can be gratified while obeying the duties of the pro- 



VIIOOSINQ A VOCATION. 103 

fession, there will be found in it an incentive reaching far 
toward success. Ihe very fact that }ou have a fondness 
for the duties in that calling, is surety that j-ou will follow 
it devotedl}'. Whenever the wishes become active, they 
will arouse all the other forces, and demand that somethin<r 
be done. \i a bo}- longs for a hand-saw and hatchet, he is 
evidently not of the turn to take to belles let/res. You 
may cram him with hie, Jicec, hoc, but he will onl}- make 
one of those college 'professors that dare not look off his 
text-book during recitation. Another may not be able to 
saw a stick of wood off straight, and whines every time he 
takes the cow to pasture, and yet lie on the floor for hours 
at a stretch, and devour Plutarch and Gibbon. There are 
many boys, who liked books and would have made brilliant 
men in some of the educated pursuits, that have been lashed 
for laziness, and driven to labors the}' scorned, until their 
proclivities were all blunted, and have gone moping through 
liJe broken-spirited and failures; and the neighbors testif}" 
that they " always were worthless." The first step is to 
give the inborn wishes of the boy or man an opportunit}' tc^ 
assert themselves. 

Every year an army of }oung men is sent forth from our 
colleges who have exhausted their means in procuring what 
is termed an education. They must now find some remu- 
nerating employment to support them. They sought the 
education with a distinct aim in view. Now, many are 
striving to be contented with a meager c*lerkship, or turn 
their attention to instructing in private or public schools. 
I Kindreds rush to the city with the hope of becoming jour- 
nalists, essayists or reporters. Visions of fame are still in 
the foreground, but the wolf is at their door. They do not 
seek the Press to proclaim what it would cost them their 



104 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

manhood to repress, as Lloyd Garrison did, but for bread 
and l3utter. Perchance their culture makes it easy for them 
to do this work. But at what a disadvantage they labor ! 
They must write this matter up or thai down, according to 
the arbitrary dictation of the proprietor. They must swear 
by the oath of " the ring." Like the Garrick of the stage, 
they must be ready to regret or rejoice to order. They are 
not hewing a way for any vital principle. They can advo- 
cate no reform unless it is popular so to do. They are 
literary slaxes. " Their god is their belly." Can men hope 
to build up an abiding interest on such a foundation.'' Cer- 
tainly not. If you should ask these men they would freel}" 
tell you so. Nay, many of them would laugh at }'ou tor 
an unsophisticated ninn}\ 

No! If inen would become eminent in any thing, let 
them first of all establish their right to speak and to do in 
independence. Let them labor with the hand or the head, 
but busy themselves in the cultivation of their manhood, 
bide their time and preser^•e an uncramped spirit, ready to 
do battle, ready to make peace, but always upon conditions 
honorable to all concerned. 

The mass of educated men, for the time busied in some 
humbler pursuit, scarce ever attain to the measure of their 
original plan. Perhaps no class of men sO uniformly fail to 
do what they have intended to, and what they have pre- 
pared themselves for, as educated men. With some it is 
because they are too ambitious of results, and hence early 
become bankrupt of hope and retire from the field; while 
with others capacity develops for but moderate success, and 
so, failing alike of what they aim at and of what nature 
fitted them for, they daunder about through life, as the 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 105 

Scotch phrase it, or become fixed as square pegs in round 
holes. 

It is advisable to get at the Hfe-emplo3inent as early as 
possible. There is as great liability of drifting into a false 
calling at fort}- as there is of blundering into it at twenty. 
Changes are hazardous. Better to commence business at 
middle age than to change vocations. No man ought to 
attempt the second thing if it can be a^•oided. Ho\ve^■er, 
if your first choice was unnatural and unprofitable, let it go as 
soon as you are assured of this. But be cautious of your 
mood when }-ou break holds. If despondent, stick till a 
better spell prevails. Judgment is always biased when the 
shadows gather about one. Any thing, Ihen, will seem 
more inviting than what you are at. Follow your old 
business, hopefully, while prospecting for the new. " A bird 
in the hand is worth two in the bush." Take the matter of 
change, then, into long, earnest consideration, and do not 
act until, like Davy Crockett, you are " sure you are right, 
then go ahead." 

Let time be given to choice. Every scholar can master 
one class of studies more easil}' than another. One will 
take to grammer, rhetoric or history with greediness, leav- 
ing his algebra and geometry, unconscioush', to the last 
moment. Geology is loved by another, and he stores awa}- 
every new specimen with increasing delight. One drops 
Latin, but turns to natural philosophy only with redoubled 
energ\-, making himself at home with e\-ery law which 
governs motion. While another reads his ph3-siology over 
once, closes the book, examines the ph}'sical structure of 
ever\" animal he meets, doses the cat with pills of his own 
compounding and because, by sheer accident., she dies, pla- 
cidly improvises a dissecting-room out of the back kitchen. 



lOH THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

and thus further engages in the pursuit of anatom}-. These 
are the first efforts of nature as self-instruetor. They are 
the inkhngs of the coming man. All will find, by referring 
to their school da}s, some predominant inclination. Nor 
are we going to concede to the reader that in his or his 
friend's instance it was clear mischief. Mischief there may 
have been, but that was misdirected energ}'. And often 
when the preceptor played the Rogue's March, with a tattoo 
of the ferrule over the shoulders, he would better have bee.i 
engaged in studying " bent " and shaping it. Based, then, 
on this bent, you will find a love for those after things in 
life to which your predeterminations hold relationship. 

Observe your inclinations from early j'outh. Whither 
tend they.-^ Strong dislikes augur strong likes. What science 
or art or handicraft do \ou take to most readily? Pay 
but little attention to the ambitions of friends and relatives. 
Pay a reverential regard to any one who seeks to show your 
fitness for a pursuit. Do like L^man Beecher, " Study 
Nature." Study surroundings. Study demand. Study to 
till your sphere. And for this do not hurry. You can only 
take Time itself b\' the forelock as you take time to do it. 
But some men are quite unable to estimate their own ability. 
They can no more gauge their capacities than they can hold 
themselves out at arm's length by the coat collar, or lilt 
themselves from the ground by the straps of their boots. 

Such had better seek wise counsel, and Ibllow it. 

Having chosen your occupation, begin at once to shape 
yourself for it. Hold it fast in your mind's e3'e. Photo- 
graph it on your heart. By day and by night meditate upon 
its characteristics. Is it still at a distance .'^pursue it 
through flood and flame. Let no poverty prevent; let nO' 
care, let no charm, lead you to break faith with it. Speak- 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 107 

ing in a secular sense, it is your Jerusalem, toward which 
you are to look and to pra}' thrice daily. It is your Caaba 
stone, to which you are to make pilgrimage, and which you 
are to kiss. 

The choice made and labor once begun, the first great 
struggle of life is over. You have already achieved what 
half of mankind never achieve. Now seek for opportunity, 
but be blind to obstacles, or, if 3-ou see them, kick them 
aside. " Love laughs at locksmiths:" so, a soul full of set 
purpose laughs at difficulties, and molds or creates circum- 
stances to his need. 

"When Joseph Wright, at the age of eighteen," says 
Mother Rawlings, " decided to become a lawjer, he was 
penniless and almost friendless. While obtaining an educa- 
tion and studying for the law, he was com.pelled to earn his 
bread. During Summer he worked in the brick\'ards, 
reading early and late. After taking meals, he would 
study until the hands were almost at the kiln, when he 
would close his book and run to be there on time. In 
Winter he attended school, and did odd jobs to pay his 
board. In all his haixlships he never lost faith in his star. 
Once, at the Spring exercises, when Wright had been 
chosen to deliver an oration, the professor, after reading it, 
decided it was not worthy of the occasion. Wright lelt 
that to fail here was to wreck a life, and he determined to 
speak, so informing the professor. On the rostrum, tf,at 
night, among the other performers sat Wright, clad in 
jeans and pale with determination. His speech was pro- 
nounced the ablest of the evening. He became a successful 
lawyer. The convention that first nominated him for Con- 
gress met in the Court-House, the brick of which he had 
off-borne, burned, and carried in a hod to the masons. He 



108 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

afterward became Governor of Indiana. When Minister 
to Berlin, his fellow-townsmen of Bloomington sent him two 
bricks taken from the old Court-House. They were pre- 
sented to him in the presence of diplomats and princes at a 
levee. As he held the treasure in his hands, he exclaimed 
that it was the humblest and yet the proudest moment of 
his life." 

Finally, it will take many years to reach the success you 
wish, if you put your aim as high as you ought to put it. 
They are the years of labor and waiting that try men's 
souls. The genuine philosopher in life is the man that finds 
in each duty done, each day's labor well performed, an all- 
sufficient satisfaction and remuneration, and though he 
never reach the objective pinnacle called success, is there- 
with content. It is easy to lie in bed of mornings and 
dream of glory; there is no difficulty while there to map 
out a lite of activity and see yourself climbing to the top 
round. But to turn out at five o'clock and work hard all 
■day tor j'ears, and distance every rival by simple upright- 
ness and perseverance, is another thing. It is not strange 
that many men when they come to essay this task, forsake 
it after a few years for an easier place and less wages. 
Especially if your calling is one where great eminence or 
wealth may be obtained will you find advancement to be 
slow of step. The bonanzas in the professions are like 
those in the precious metals — it takes the longest and deep- 
est digging to reach them. Having once placed your hand 
on the plow, never look back unless failing health or an 
event over which you have no control compel it. 

Whatever your calling may be, do not atiect to despise 
it. A man could with as good grace despise his mother as 
hate the pursuit nature intended him for. Do not belittle 



CHOOSING A VOCATION. 109 

your business by berating it in the presence of others. 
There is a pecuHar relationship existing between a man 
and his business, and the world soon comes to look on the 
representative of the business in the same light that he 
speaks of the business. Become impressed with the value 
of your occupation. Stud}' its relationship to the various 
departments of industry. Look upon it as an important 
link in the chain. Make it a swivel if you can ; at any rate, 
honor it. Remember, 3'ou have passed through espousals, 
and are now wedded. Preserve your chastity with it; and 
when you are blessed by its profits and its joys, welcome 
them as a legitimate posteritj-. 

With our democratic principles no man need hang down 
his head because of humble pursuits. All people whose 
respect is worth anything regard a man for himself and not 
because of his family or profession. It is the man who 
makes the business, and if any' undertaking has no 7iian 
behind it, of how frail a texture is it! Broidered gold and 
lace can not compensate for such lack. 

" Worth makes the man. and want of it, the fellow ; 
The rest is all but leather or prunella." 

Cesare Borgia was a croziered prelate, but his life of 
poisoning and plunder consigned him to the scorn of all 
good men. Nero was one of Rome's emperors, but his 
inhuman life singled him out as the representative fiend for 
all coming ages. Caste is dying, and neither crowns nor 
carriages can of themselves give dignity: the man must 
dignify the deed. President Lincoln was often referred to 
sneeringly by his rivals as "the rail-splitter," but his energy 
and courage both as a boy and a man have done more to 
inspire confidence in the bosoms of poor and friendless 
youth than all the politicians whose aristocratic influence 



IIU 



THE GENIUS OF INDUSTUY^ 



has given them a seat in the parliaments of mankind. 
Homer was a poor, wandering ballad-monger on the shores 
of Greece, whose misfortunes were mollified b}' the verses 
he poured forth from his soul. His music has floated on 
every air, through each succeeding age, while his heroic 
lines have inspired the great and enriched the literature of 
nations. 




I 






V 





I know that I am censured of some conceit of my ability or worth; but I 
pray your Majesty impute it to my desire. — Lord Bacun to yames I. 

One science only will one genius fit; 
So wide is art, so narrow human wit. 



The wise and active conquer difficulties 
By daring to attempt them; sloth and folly 
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and danger, 
And make the impossibility they fear. 

— Rotve. 

The sweat of industry would dry and die 

But for the end it works to. — Slinksfeare. 

Every one is the son of his own work. — Cervantes. 

A necessary provision for success is an elevated and worthy aim. 






OST men desire to accomplish a creditable work. 

They have respect for the approval of their fellows. 

But this is not enough. A man must have his 
own approval. The plaudits of the public are worth little 
if he can not find applause when he turns within. No man 
can afford to secure a result at the expense of his manhood, 
no matter how rich it may be. The attainment of any 
great end by unmanly means is not success. Nothing is 
success for which you exchange your virtue or dignity. 
Every aim must be worthy of you, and one of which you 
are proud. 

During the war for the independence of the colonies, it is 
related that in one of the early battles, the British soldiers 
opened fire on our troops without taking aim. This kind of 
shooting may have been dictated by mercy, and may have 
served to ameliorate the rigors of war, but for thinning the 
ranks of a foe it proved ineffectual. Our intrepid general 
ordered his men not to fire until they could see the whites 
of the enemies' eyes. The result was, the advancing 
column was cut down like grass. So it is in the struggle of 
life. The man who aims with precision will do thorough 



114 rUE GENrUti OF INDUSTRY. 

execution, while he who shoots at randprn rarely hits the 
mark. 

The desire for success is universal. Every man intends 
to win. Every heart pants for victory. But, alas! the 
masses only fire at the lump. They have no definite aim, 
and ambition without this is misplaced, and one of the vani- 
ties. Success is no nebulous affair; it is a specific result to 
be attained. The acquirement of unusual proficiency in a 
business, or the amassing of a large fortune, is termed suc- 
cess. But such success depends upon special attention and 
toil. People that labor loosely and at large do not often 
become proficients. You must put a goal far ahead of 3'ou, 
and cry with Paul, " I press toward the mark lor the prize of 
my high calling." One physician will practice medicine for 
thirty years without winning any distinction whatever, 
simply because he makes nothing in his line a specialty; 
whereas his rival, with no better education or opportunities, 
having made typhoid fe\"er a careful study, acquires a repu- 
tation the country over for his treatment of diseases; and 
thus, in consequence of his special knowledge, does twice 
the riding of his versatile friend. The carpenter who gives 
his attention to weather-boarding acquires a skill that puts 
him in great demand, not particularly as a weather-boarder, 
but as a carpenter. Many men owe their failure to an eftbrt 
to excel in every part of a wide occupation. The desire is 
laudable but not advisable. Give attention to one depart- 
ment at a time. It is a triumph to be the prince of horse- 
shoers in your community, but to be but a fair smith in 
everything is often to be a botch in the best thing. When 
Cyrus W. Field gives his attention to a submarine cable, 
pouring out the energies of a life-time upon it, there is a 
hope of bringing the two worlds into instant communion. 



AIM. 115 

And when Judge Fullerton assigns himself the task of 
managing the witnesses the pubUc comes into possession of 
facts he could ne\er gi\e them as a general law}er. 

Determine, then, to become pre-eminent in at least one 
branch of }'our profession, and let 3'our point of perfection 
be placed as high as possible. The reaching of a high stand- 
ard, of itself, lends wings to flight. With a heart full of 
enthusiasm, strive to become the master of your calling, and 
do in it and for it what no man has ever done before. God has 
given you something to do which no other man can do as well. 
Seek out that thing, and do it. Never strive after success, as 
such. To work simply for glory is frivolous and fatal. No man 
was ever a great man who plotted to be one. To be sure there 
is a glory in being, but it is only as it comes to us incidentall}'. 
A man must do in order to be, and leave glorj- to take care of 
itself. Greatness attaches, in some degree, to ever}' duty well 
done, but never to trappings and gaud}' paraphernalia. In 
the formation of greatness the soul is so full of the noble 
promptings of duty it has no place for false expectations; 
borne on by the impulses of responsibility and love, it finds 
its sufficiency in satisfying its necessities. Take away this 
element, this motive to action, and man would never do a 
great deed. Hence it is, many of the world's really great 
men have been more surprised at being called great than 
their friends. It was not the occasion that made them great. 
They met the demands of the occasion and were therefore 
great; Demosthenes did not think of becoming the world's 
greatest orator when he practiced for twelve years with 
pebbles in his mouth; he only thought of o\"crcoming an 
impediment in his speech and resisting Philip of Macedon. 
Patrick Henr}' did not dream of greatness when he made 
his speech in the old court-house in Virginia; he only thought 



116 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

of defending the people from the unrighteous encroachments 
of the clergy. Shakespeare wrote his plays, not for future 
greatness, but that he might be able to meet his grocer's 
bills. Think you Hannibal was planning for glory when he 
tied torches to the bullocks' horns, and sent them bellowing 
through the Roman camp, dismaying and routing their 
whole army? No! he only thought of getting his little 
band out of that valley of death. 

Men differ in mind, as the}- do in bod}', and no power can 
ever make them equals. Each is capable of the greatest 
prominence in his sphere. Yon little mound, put in contrast 
with the surrounding plain, is just as great as the loftiest 
peak of the Andes in the midst of neighboring mountains. 
Small men working in their sphere are just as great as the 
mightiest working in theirs. It is only when they change 
positions that the difference becomes offensive. It is only 
when little men have on big men's boots that they stumble 
and fall in the race of life. The greatest possibilities in your 
sphere, then, are open to you, but only in yours. So we 
must conclude, as an able writer has said: "It is no man's 
business whether he has genius or not ; work he must, what- 
ever he is, but quietly and steadily, and the natural and 
unforced results of such work will be always the things that 
God meant him to do, and will be his best. No agonies or 
heart-rendingswill enable him to do any better! If he be 
a great man, they will be great things; if he be a small man, 
small things; but always, if thus peacefully done, good and 
right; always, if restlessly and ambitiously done, false, hollow 
and despicable." 

Cotton has said that examples demonstrate the possibility 
of success. The life of Bernard Palissy, the potter, is an 
illustration of one who had an aim within his sphere, and 



AIM. 117 

who, without flagging, pursued it to the very highest results. 
The parents of Palissy were too poor to give him any educa- 
tion. " I had no books," he writes, " other than heaven and 
earth, which are open to all." After wandering over the 
continent for some ten years as a worker in glassware, he 
married and settled in the little town of Saintes. His family 
increased more rapidly than his earnings, and necessity called 
on him for greater exertions. He extended his operations 
to earthenware; yet of its manufacture he was wholly ignor- 
ant, for he had never seen earth baked, and only had ingenuity, 
hope and perseverance for his helpers. 

Seeing one of Lucca della Robbia's cups, his whole nature 
was wrought into an intense passion. His art needed just such 
a glaze as that. His whole life became stirred with a reso- 
lution to create that enamel. The necessities of his family 
inflamed his new-born ardor. But that family with his 
unhatched project before him became a millstone about his 
neck anchoring him to the village and to a tedious fate. At 
first he could merely guess the materials of which the enamel 
was composed, and he proceeded to try all manner of experi- 
ments to ascertain what they really were. He pounded all 
the substances which he supposed were likely to produce it. 
Then he bought common earthen pots, broke them into 
pieces, and spreading his compounds over them, subjected 
them to the heat of a furnace which he erected for the pur- 
pose of baking them. His experiments failed, and the 
results were broken pots and a waste of fuel, drugs, time and 
labor. Women do not always readily sympathize with 
experiments whose only tangible effect is to dissipate the 
means of buying clothes and food for their children; and 
Palissy's wife, however dutiful in other respects, could not 
be reconciled to the purchase of more earthenware pots, 



118 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

which seemed to her to be bought only to be broken Yet 
she must needs submit; for PaHssy had become thoroughly 
possessed by the determination to master the secret of the 
enamel, and would not leave it alone. 

Months and years were spent in these experiments, until 
finall}' Palissy was no longer able to meet even the small 
expense of his own furnace. But his determination increased 
as his money vanished, and he prepared four hundred more 
pieces, and carried them to a tile furnace five miles awav. 
After the burning he went to see the pieces taken out, and 
every piece was again a failure. Sad but undaunted, he 
says, " I now resolved to begin afresh." 

For four years longer he pursued his experiments. Hav- 
ing in the mean time been called for several months to 
assist in measuring the "salt marshes," he was unusually 
hopeful, for he now had means with which to buy chemicals. 
But once more he was on the verge of abject poverty. He 
now resolved to make one last great effort, and began by 
breaking more pots than ever. Hundreds of pieces of pot- 
tery covered with his compounds were now taken to the 
furnace, and there he remained to watch the baking himself. 
For Ibur hours he watched; and then the furnace was 
opened. Of the hundreds of pieces consigned to the fire, on 
one the compound had melted. It was taken out to cool. 
As it hardened it grew white and polished ! The one piece 
of potsherd was covered with an enamel which was singu- 
larly beautiful. His weary eyes lit up with fresh hope. 
But the prize was far from won. This partial success of 
the intended last effort lured him on to other experiments 
and failures. 

Feelinc that victorv was near at hand, he resolved to 
build a furnace near his dwelling. He did so with his own 



AIM. 119 

hands, carrying on his back tlie brick from tlie brick-field. 
Another 3-ear passed, and the furnace was read}'. Palissy 
had in the mean time prepared a number of clay vessels for 
the laying on of the enamel. After baking the)' were cov- 
ered with the enamel compound and placed in the furnace 
for the crucial experiment. For months he had been 
gathering fuel for the final effort, and he thought there was 
enough. His family reproached him lor his recklessness, 
and his neighbors cried shame upon him for his obstinate 
folly. But, acknowledging no criterion but success, he once 
more lit the fire. All day he sat by the furnace, feeding it 
with fuel. 2VII through the long night he sat there, watch- 
ing and feeding. Yet the enamel did not melt. The sun 
rose, and still he sat with eager e}-es. His wife brought 
him a portion of the scanty morning meal — for he would 
not stir from the furnace, into which he continued from time 
to time to heave more fuel. The second day passed, and 
still the enamel did not melt. The sun set, and another 
night passed. The pale, haggard, unshorn, baffled yet not 
beaten Palissy sat by his furnace eagerly looking for the 
melting of the enamel. A third day and night passed — -a 
fourth, a fifth, and even a sixth — 3'es, for six long da3-s and 
nights did the unconquerable Palissy watch and toil, fight- 
ing against hope; and still the enamel would not melt. 

It then occurred to him that there might be some defect 
in the materials for the enamel — perhaps something wanting 
in the flux; so he set to work to pound and compound fresh 
materials for a new experiment. Thus two or three weeks 
passed. But how to bu}- more pots.'' — for those which he 
had made with his own hands for the purposes of the first 
experiment were, by long baking, irretrievably spoiled for 
the purposes of a second. His money was now all spent; 



V20 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

but he could borrow. His character was still good, though 
his wife and the neighbors thought him foolishly wasting 
his means in futile experiments. Nevertheless he suc- 
ceeded. He borrowed sufficient from a friend to enable 
him to buy more fuel and more pots, and he was again 
ready for a further experiment. The pots were covered 
with the new compound, placed in the furnace, and the fire 
was again lit. 

It was the last and most desperate experiment of the 
whole. The fire blazed up; the heat became intense; but 
still the enamel did not melt. The fuel began to run short! 
How to keep up the fire.'' There were the garden palings; 
these would burn. They must be sacrificed rather than 
that the great experiment should fail. The garden palings 
were pulled up and cast into the furnace. They were 
burned in vain! The enamel had not 3-et melted. Ten 
minutes' more heat might do. Fuel must be had, no mat- 
ter what the cost. There remained the household furniture 
and shelving. He rushed into the house, seized bedstead 
and chairs and crushed them to kindlings. His wife and 
children sat down in tears and despair. Even their little 
home was going. Still the enamel did not melt. Another 
wrenching of timber was heard inside the house: the shelves 
W^ere being torn down and hurled after the furniture into 
the fire. Wife and children then rushed from the house, 
and went frantically through the town, cr3'ing that Palissy 
had gone mad and was breaking up his very furniture for 
firewood. 

For an entire month his shirt had not been off his back, 
and he was utterly worn out with toil, anxiety, watching, 
and want of food. He was in debt and seemed on the verge 
of ruin. But he had at last triumphed. The last great 



AIM. 121 

burst of heat had melted the compound. When the furnace 
cooled, there stood the common clay jars, which had been 
put in brown, glittering with white enamel. 

Ten years he had patiently borne the scorn and reproach 
of his friends and family. Ten years had he spent battling 
with poverty, prosecuting an aim within his sphere — seeking 
for perfection m one branch of his art. Yet he toiled 
through eight years more of experimental plodding before 
he was complete master of glazing. Every mishap was a 
fresh lesson to him, teaching him something new about the 
nature of enamels, the qualities of argillaceous earths, the 
tempering of clays, and the construction and management 
of furnaces. Concerning his struggles during these last 
years he writes: "Nevertheless, hope continued to inspire 
me, aiid I held on manfully. Sometimes, when visitors 
called, I entertained them with pleasantry, while I was really 

sad at heart Worst of all the sufTerings I had to 

endure, were the mockeries and persecutions of those of m}' 
own household, who were so unreasonable as to expect me 
to execute work without the means of doing so. For years 
ni}' furnaces were without any covering or protection, and 
while attending them I have been for nights at the mercy 
of the wind and the rain, without help or consolation, save 
it might be the wailing of cats on the one side and the howl- 
ing of dogs on the other. Sometimes the tempest would 
beat so furiously against the furnaces that I was compelled 
to leave them and seek shelter within doors. Drenched by 
rain, and in no better plight than if I had been dragged 
through mire, I have gone to lie down at midnight or at 
daybreak, stumbling into the house without a light, and 
reeling from one side to another as if I had been drunken, 
but really weary with watching and filled with sorrow at 



122 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTUT. 

the loss of my labor after such long toiling. But alas ! my 
home proved no refuge; for, drenched and besmeared as I 
was, I found in my chamber a second persecution worse 
than the first, which makes me even now marvel that I was 
not utterly consumed by my many sorrows." 

At this stage of his affairs, Palissy became melancholy 
and almost hopeless, and seems to have all but broken down. 
He wandered gloomily about the fields near Saintes, his 
clothes hanging in tatters, and himself worn to a skeleton. 
In a curious passage in his writings he describes how that 
the calves of his legs had disappeared, and were no longer 
able with the help of garters to hold up his stockings, which 
fell about his heels when he walked. 

Palissy lived to a ripe old age crowned with wealth and 
honor. lie was appointed Inventor of Rustic Figulines to 
the King, and lodged in the Tuileries. He wrote on agri- 
culture and natural histor}^ and became celebrated as a 
religious disputant after he was seventy years of age. A 
man of rare virtues and inflexible rectitude, possessed of 
extraordinary endurance and continuity of aim, his life was 
made great by heroic labor. His was a literal application 
of Locke's principle, that " he that sets out on weak legs 
will not only go further, but grow stronger, too, than one 
who, with a vigorous constitution and firm limbs, onl}- sits 
still." 

A man may have the most dazzling talents, but if they 
are not directed toward a special result, he will accomplish 
nothing. The opinion is prevalent that greatness disdains 
the humble, toilsome path that leads to excellence. Indolent 
schoolboys and dissipated college lads are in the habit of 
quoting the example of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster to 
justify their course, and of attempting to pi-ove b}- a curious 



AIM. 123 

kind of logic that they are giving indications of genius. 
These men were laborious students in their later 3-ears. Clay 
alwa3's expressed remorse at his early neglect, although it 
would be difficult to see how he could have been more studi- 
ous; while Webster never ceased to regret his early indiffer- 
ence. Even Sir Walter Scott, a recognized genius, whose 
extensive writings and comprehensive sentences would 
indicate a reserve of power that was inexhaustible, speaks 
in his personal history with a voice of warning against this 
fatal misapprehension. He says: " If it should ever fall to 
the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such readers 
remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect 
in my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neg- 
lected in my youth; that through every part of my literary 
career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own igno- 
rance, and would this moment give half of the reputation I 
have had the good fortune to acquire, if bv so doing I could 
rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning 
and science." 

In fact, the majority of our best men have felt cause to 
regret the daj's when they thought there was no need of 
application. A recent writer, himself a man of brilliant 
genius, says: ."I produce a work, and men cr}- 'genius.' 
I can admit no genius in it. I decide to execute a work, 
and at once bring my whole soul to the task ; after days and 
months of toil — toil such as the most of men will not give 
to an object, or do not care to give, I bring forth the scantv 
result, and the}' say, another great feat of genius." There 
is a common misapprehension concerning education. It is 
generall}' thought to mean an infusing into the mind of a 
certain amount of information, classical, mathematical, tech- 
nical, or historical. But this is to confound the end with 



124 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the means. Every kind of information extant may have a 
tendency to educate, but of itself can not constitute the 
work. That man is educated who, by whatever means, has 
made his powers available to an end ; and he is best educated 
who can make them effective to reach the best end. 

We have Fox, the child of an indulgent father, rising 
despite luxury, gaming and dissoluteness, into the most bril- 
liant debater the world ever saw; Burke, with ordinary 
advantages, distancing all competitors; Erskine, the ensign- 
bearer, meeting no peer before a jury; Chatham, bred in 
affluence, bearing every thing before him by the resistless 
storm of his eloquence; Lincoln, the rail-splitter, putting at 
bay the mighty Douglas ; and Fred. Douglass, the eloquent 
African, rising in spite of ignominy of birth and race-preju- 
dice; all of unequal education and different environments, 
now ranking as peers, side by side. Each had caught the 
secret of making his powers available, and each attained a 
rare destiny. 

Only men of lofty aim are permitted to accomplish great 
works. Nothing so fires the soul to energy as the possibility 
of unusual results. Ablaze with such a faith, Louis Napo- 
leon ventured his desperate coiip-d^-etat., and found himself 
Emperor of France. Poverty and misfortlane sometimes 
become the very talisman of success. Byron's resolve was 
never taken until he overheard a schoolmate call him " club- 
foot." Then and there he resolved to outstrip that boy in 
the race of life. Nelson was little and lame and nervous. 
On coming down to the vessel after his appointment as 
captain, the sailors exclaimed, "What! Make a captain 
out ot that little fellow?" Nelson's sensitive nature was 
wounded, and he determined to show himself worthy of the 



Am. 125 

office. It matters little, so far as the final result is concerned, 
what prompts the setting up of an aim. Like Byron, 

" Many a soul sublime 
Has felt the influence of malignant star, 
And waged with fortune an eternal war." 

That aim is the noblest and most likely to succeed which 
is felt to be a necessity in the calling, and then is labored 
unto for very love of it. A conviction that the time had 
come to supplant the philosophy of Aristotle by a more 
rational statement of things, and that the world demanded 
such a work, produced Bacon's Novum Oro^anoti. Nothing 
short of a love that burned to enthusiasm caused Michael 
Angelo to toil so prodigiously, embellishing the walls of 
the Vatican with a touch almost divine. When asked why 
he did not marry, he replied, " Painting is my wife, and my 
works are m}' children." Hermit Peter felt that the inter- 
ests of his religion and the honor of his God demanded that 
the Holy Sepulcher should be fi^eed fi^om the domination of 
the Turk. To this labor he consecrated himself — a most 
stupendous undertaking for a recluse — traveling for months 
and years in poverty and under censure. The derision of 
the populace and the daily obstacles with which he had to 
contend, only served to increase his faith in his mission. He 
felt he was to be the liberator of Jerusalem. When men 
said, " Even if successful, no benefit can be derived," his 
answer was, "It is a religious duty." When they cried, 
"Impossible," he met that with the burning reply, "No 
right work is impossible." His zeal drove over every oppo- 
sition, until his plea rang through every palace, house and 
hamlet on the continent. He conquered Europe in order to 
conquer Islam. For three hundred years, nations vied with 
each other in furnishing blood for the slaughter. The cru- 



126 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

sade failed to accomplish Peter's intention, but he produced 
the mightiest uprising recorded in the annals of history.. 

No class of men so uniformly fail as they who sit in the 
sunshine of wealth. Being hedged about with the elements 
out of which opportunities spring, they ought to be the most 
successful; but luxur}' enervates, and her children are so 
pampered the}- die before the}' learn their uselessness. It is 
far better to perish in poverty than flourish in indolence. 
The very fact that bread and butter have to be obtained by 
the sweat of the brow, tends to increase acti\'ity and to give 
direction to an honest aim. A great fortune is often a great 
misfortune. This is speciall}' true if it fall into the hands of 
the 30ung. Nothing blinds the aim so much as a father's 
hea\'3' bank account. Hugh Miller thought manual labor 
was necessary, in the very nature of things, to de\-elop and 
sustain a high purpose. He may not be entirel}^ correct, 
but, at any rate, the wealthy young man is fortunate if he 
realizes that all his possibilities are to be wrought out b}- his 
own exertions. Stall-fed greatness is like]}- to make bloats. 
Money lavished 011 j'ou is in ^'ain, unless you use aright the 
opportunities it purchases. Friends to build scaffold about 
you, and spouting editors to cry up your magnificence, only 
make it more certain that lor you destiny is dead. Great- 
ness is not something poured into a man; it is something he 
pours out. All the means to reach a desired end may be 
about 3'ou, but if 3'ou go to it on crutches you will not be 
able to stand when you arrive. The school-teacher who 
impresses his pupils with the great practical truth that all 
the elements they can utilize in the struggle of life are 
within themselves, and that all assistance be3-ond a certain 
limit enfeebles them, is worth a thousand dollars a }'ear 
more to the patrons of the school than the teacher who con- 



AIM. 127 

fines himself to the customary hum-drum of text-books. 
The life of Cicero had been rendered aimless by the dissipa- 
tion of wealth, and his eftbrts as a student neutralized by 
the flattery of friends, who maintained him to be the 
greatest orator of the world. When he matched sentences 
with one of the old senators, he saw his failure. Forthwith 
he left Rome, and entered the school of ^Eschines. For 
man}' months he kept aloof from the public in the steady 
pursuit of rhetorical power. Unweariedly he toiled, mount- 
ing, step by step, to the summit of his profession, till now, 
on his return to Rome, by common consent he became 
monarch of the Forum. The young man who spends his 
time in bewailing his fate in this open and industrious world 
is a ninny; and not much better is he who pins himself to 
the skirts of an illustrious ancestry. What would the younger 
Pitt have been without tireless drudgery.? Or what the 
jounger Hood or Hawthorne.? Let each rely on his own 
resources. Let him whet his sword on the stones of oppo- 
sition; then will he with deft stroke hew down every foe. 

In his recently published " Life and Letters," Lord 
Macaula}' says, " I am now near the end of Tom Moore's 
'Life of Byron.' It is a sad book. Poor fellow! Yet he was a 
bad fellow and horribly aflected. But then what that could 
spoil a character was wanting.? Had I at twent3'-four had 
a peerage, and been the most popular poet and the most 
successful Lovelace of the day, I should have been as great 
a coxcomb and possibly as bad a man." 

Some one, whose mind ran on love, says, 

"Faint heart never won fair lady;" 

and so it is, that the man who, through fear of failure, has 

faltered while contemplating life in its most fruitful stage, 

can scarce pick up courage ever after to attempt any thing 



128 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

durable. He sees what others undergo in order to reach 
excellence, and thinks the cost too great. The summer is 
too long and dry and heated before the harvest. But it is 
written in the irrevocable laws, " He that would be a master 
must be a slave." And it is this slavery, man}' otherwise 
clever men detest. Their apology is that this, that and the 
other is not their forte. And the this, that and the other is, 
of course, the drudgery. Canning and Phillips, than whom 
none of the '' few illustrious" were brighter, found it impossi- 
ble to descend to menial toil. Betrayed by their flashing 
declamation, they were content to excite admiration when 
they should have been striving to carry home conviction. 
Their statesmanship and legal lore were of an equall}' 
unpractical character. Of the former, Pitt said, " He might 
have achieved any thing if he had gone straight to the 
mark." He closed his fitful career as he commenced it, as 
voluble as a fountain but as empty as a drum. On the 
other side of the house sat Fox, Here was a man of definite 
aim. When but a weaver's boy he was courageous enough 
to demand a portion of his time for mental pursuits. He 
did not grant that, to submit to an apprenticeship entitled 
the proprietor to a wholesale interest in his brains and blood. 
There was something else to live for besides weaving cloth. 
He was to control men and measures, and early in life he 
asserted his right to so fit himself. Did not Randon, the 
drummer-boy, drink at this Pierian spring when he resolved 
to be a more useful soldier, and so informed his comrades.^ 
He bore to his profession a deep devotion and a singleness 
of purpose which was rewarded, at last, by placing him in 
the French Cabinet, as Minister of War. And now, to-day, 
as his portrait hangs in the gallery at Versailles, with his 
hand resting on his drum, loft}' thoughts are inspired in the 



AIM. 129 

minds of many a soldier as to valorous deeds yet to be 
done and heights yet to be climbed. 

When John C. Calhoun was a student at Yale College his 
energetic habits called out the question from his companions, 
what the necessity for it? "Why, sii'," he answered, "I 
am forced to make the best of my time that I may acquit 
myself creditably when in Congress.''' This caused a roar 
of laughter. " Do you doubt it,"' he vehementh" continued; 
" I assure you if I were not convinced of my ability to reach 
the National Capital as a representative within the next 
three years, I would quit college this very day." 

Place your a in high, then. Fix your e3e firmly on it 
and instantly begin }our task. You ma\' not accomplish all 
you desire, but so intentioned, you will achie\"e man\- noble 
things. Do not despise hindrances, but anticipate them. 
Never sufler yourself to be surprised and chagrined by dis- 
appointments. As Dewey says, " The plow and the harrow 
will break in the field; the tire will part from the wheel, or 
the horse will cast his shoe by the way; the thread will slip 
from the needle; the garments we wear will not exactly fit; 
a certain pertinacious tendenc}- to disorder or discomfort 
will meet us at every turn; the course of nothing will run 
smooth." Be prepared for all these things, then, and be 
patient. Hindrances are God's helps. He that hath no 
hindrance hath no mission, and he that hath no mission has 
no manhood. What you are to do is to " Overturn, Over- 
turn, Overturn," until }-ou be crowned the victor of life. 




¥/||.J.-f^pV/^H. 



The world is a nettle; disturb It, it stings; 
GraSD it firmly, it stings not. One of two things, 
If you would not be stung, it behooves you to settle: 
Avoid it, or crush it. * 

—0'j.vn Meredith. 

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination. — Xapolcon. 

This is the riddle of existence — read it. — Wcrncy. 

Let the free, reasonable Will which dwells in us, as in our holy of holies, 
be indeed free, and obeyed like a divinity, as is its right and its effort. — 
Carlylc. 

"I came; I saw; I conquered." 




^pw^K 




ONDROUS is the nature of the will! By the 
decision of the Deity, it is as sovereign in the 
creature as in the Creator. Every where and 
always it is the province of will to designate and direct its 
own acts. True, there are powers that affect the will — 
motives, such as 'counsel, reason, desire, or passion — and yet, 
such is its autocratic nature, it often pushes every thing aside 
and acts independently of all. 

Will-power is indispensable to success; no greatness is 
attained without it. A superior measure of it is worth more 
to one than the most opulent gifts of genius. Some of the 
most potent spirits that ever peered through flesh have been 
rendered effete and useless for lack of this one element. To 
the man of vigorous wills there are few impossibilities. 
Obstructions melt before his fiat like spring snowflakes. 
There is a coarse, iron strength in his movement that breaks 
its way like an elephant in a jungle. His " no " falls on you 
like a thunderbolt, while his "yes" is as a quick whistle to 
clear the wa}- for the engine. You feel that this man is no 
food for sloth or snail. This, you say, is virility with a sur- 
plus. The man is made of better stufl' than the events and 



132 • THE GENIUS OP INDUSTUY. 

things he encounters. He is, as Emerson would say, a 
causaiionisi. Power flows from him like a ri\"er. 

The man who sa3-s, "I'll find a way or make one," gener- 
ally finds a way. It was quite characteristic of the old 
Scandinavians that their crest should bear a god with a 
hammer in his hand. The speech of one Norseman gives 
the spirit of all the Norsemen of that day: "I believe 
neither in idols nor demons," said he. " I put my sole trust 
in my own strength of body and soul." Impediments are 
often but the goblins of our own imagination. When we 
insist upon a surrender we find no one to answer. We 
should have searched within. Let action be enstamped with 
emphasis. It is a starving process to chew the husk of 
defeat and apathy when we might pluck' the fruit of con- 
quering endea^■or. 

When we observe how little genius has performed, in 
comparison with what we have been taught to expect of it, 
and how far mediocrity has surpassed our expectations, we 
are forced to conclude that a great share of man's strength 
lies in his indomitable determination. Lafayette twice had 
it in his power to save France from the throes of civil war, 
but so singularly infirm of purpose was he that all his pat- 
riotism eflervesced in manifestoes. No heaven-born inspira- 
tion lit up the pages of Buffon or Southey. No great genius 
drove Burke to the front rank of English statesmen. Every 
inch of headway made by Disraeli was by sheer force 
of will. It was thus Cyrus W. Field laid the cable ; thus 
Newton conquered the heavens, and thus Frederick attained 
unto the leadership of the European kings. It was a will 
that would admit no hand to rise between it and its cher- 
ished object, and a soul that would not spare itself in the 
most toilsome drudgery. 



WILL-POWER. 133 

Unusual talents have ne\er been ascribed to Washington, 
but he had that whicli was more eflective — will-power and 
self-assertion. They won for his people the prize of every 
patriot's ambition — a free country. Without these neither 
the eloquence of Patrick Henry, the gifted pen of Tom 
Paine, nor all the variet}' of Franklin's genius could conquer 
it. The most hero-worshiping of the coming ages will not 
ascribe brilliancy to General Grant ; but they will record for 
him a coolness of head and inflexibility of purpose that 
would win his end if it took all summer. They may grant 
brilliancy to McClellan; intrepidity to Sherman; but the 
awful force of character that finds a way or makes it, will 
be given to Grant. 

There is a broad difference between mere wishes and 
desires, and the intrepid force that carries one triumphantly 
over every opposition. This wishing and expecting — this 
" gold-blossom " age of 3-oung men — must be got beyond 
before they come to the la3-er of methl that makes man- 
hood. How many are deceived into accepting these flashier 
metals for the sterner stuff" of life. " When a purpose 
is once formed it must be carried out with alacrity and 
without swerving." A man needs to feel about a thing he 
desires to do, as did Byron, whose soul was being consumed 
by his ambition to be a great poet. " I must write," he 
said, " or I would go mad." When a desire swells up in the 
soul until it must out into action or the man is in danger, he 
is then prepared to accomplish some noble work. Will- 
power is never fully aroused from its lair until such a fine 
frenzy has seized upon the man. 

A man of weak will can never be a great man. He may 
be surrounded by wealth, and bolstered by inherited posi- 
tion, as Charles II, but he can never be great. Greatness is 



134 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

within. To how high a degree will-power may be culti- 
vated remains a problem. But it can be cultivated to 
a respectable standard. One of the most pitjable objects in 
life is a man who has come to the conclusion that he can not 
will. His destiny is an elected failure; his character is 
broken; every man becomes his potter, and he is every 
man's clay. But no man need despair because his resolutions 
have thus far appeared weak. Some of the most frail and 
vacillating of men, like Charles XII of Sweden, have, when 
awful necessity presented its visage, thrown ofi' their former 
selves and risen into characters of steel. 

It is hard to tell the difference between a poor vessel and 
a good one in fair weather; but when the storm comes 
it will soon make known to the passengers the worth of 
their craft. So, while one has father, or uncle, or friends to 
clear his path of every obstacle and help him carry his load, 
the force of his character is not known. When, however, 
he is left to help himself, and the waves of competition begin 
to crush in his sides, he will manifest his strength or weak- 
ness. HoweAcr feeble the will may have appeared at 
former times, the realization that he must now rely on self, 
becomes a bulwark of strength. And the character is 
a frail one indeed that is not revolutionized by this new 
order of things, and does not signalize it by passing into a 
nobler life. 

The man whose will-power is not marked, or is undevel- 
oped, will often fiijd a saving virtue in his pride of character. 
Nothing can sting some men into unconquerable determina- 
tion sooner than outraged pride. Men of vast capabilities 
are often like the elephant, which trudges quietly along the 
way with its head down, willing to take second best in 
every thing until somebody insults him; then he wakes up, 



WILLPOWER. 135 

and one blow sends the insulter to the dust. So these 
humble-minded giants, under the lash of pride, call up the 
latent powers of their natures, and at once become the lords 
of their fellows. A taunt sent Byron on his travels, and 
made him a great poet; and a similar thing spurred Nelson 
to be the hero of Trafalgar. 

After all the other quickening powers have exhausted 
themselves, failure has perhaps been the most potent of all 
causes in developing force of character. It seems strange 
that the materials for success are oftener molded out 
of disaster than triumph. Dr. Holland wrote in Bitter- 

Sweet : 

" Life evermore is fed on death, 
In earth, or air, or sky: 

That a rose may breathe its breath, 
Something must die." 
So it is with man}' men — that they may live, they must die ; 
that they may learn how to triumph, they must serve 
an apprenticeship at defeat. Robespierre failed so egre- 
giously in his first speech that his friends counseled him to 
retire from the rostrum. Indeed, after repeated efforts, his 
failures were so disheartening that it was said there was 
" not another Frenchmen but would have committed 
suicide." Robespierre felt the weight of his situation deeply; 
his cheeks became pale, his eye lost its luster, and he was 
well nigh thrown into a fever; but with each failure, as his 
pulse and reputation went down, his determination went up, 
and it is doubtful, if he had not possessed the " humiliation 
of confused ideas " and a hesitating tongue, whether he 
would have risen to the leadership of the National Assembly 
of France. 

The world's most famous generals have not been the most 
uniformly victorious. Clive was not; Washington was not; 



136 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTUY. 

neither was Caesar. Blucher lost nine battles out of ten; 
but his marvelous energies rose superior to disaster, and his 
sullen phalanx presented to the victorious enemy a more 
deadly front on the morrow than ever before. Suwarrow, 
that intrepid little soul of Russia, who kicked the silk 
upholster}' out of his room in Berlin, and ordered the courtiers 
to bring him some straw and a blanket for his bed, suffered 
vast numbers of defeats, but alwa}'s pro\"ed himself a greater 
general, than his victor, for he conquered his misfortunes. 
To one that failed in life and complained of it, he said: 
"You can but half will." There is no such word as failure 
in the vocabulary of the men whose determination rises in 
proportion to the extent of their disasters. 

But we are now to notice a rout in which there is neither 
promise nor possibility of victor}', though the genius of a 
Blucher or a Suwarrow be present to supervise it. We 
refer to the destruction of the will-power by stimulants. 
Not until lately has it been prominently enforced b}' our 
physiologists that all volition whatsoever is reduced to a con- 
dition of paralysis by the chronic use of intoxicants. To 
sustain and exhibit this fearful fact we quote from no less an 
authority than Carpenter. This author avers that " it is per- 
fectly clear that this disturbance of purely psychical action, 
affecting not merely what may be regarded as the functions 
of the brain, but the exercise of that attribute ■ of man's 
nature which seems most strongl}- indicative of a power 
beyond and above it, is produced by agencies purely phy- 
sical. For it is not only that the balance between the auto- 
matic activity of the brain and the directing and controlling 
power of the will is disturbed by the exaltation of the for- 
mer, so as to give it a predominance o\er the latter. On 
the contrary, the absolute -weakening of volitional control is 



WILL-POWEIi. 137 

clearly a primary effect of these agencies: being as strongly 
manifested when the automatic activity (as often happens) 
is reduced, as when it is augmented. And this weak- 
ening is still more obvious when, not merely the quality of 
the blood, but the nutrition of the brain, lias been deterior- 
ated by the prolonged action of ' nervine stimulants ; ' the 
will becoming, as it were, paralyzed, so that //le mental pow- 
ers are not under its command for any exertion ivhatever^ 
while even its controlling power over bodil}- movements may 
be greatly diminished." 

Now, if this be so (and we have not the temerity to dis- 
pute Dr. Carpenter) it is in vain for a man to seek for mas- 
tery in business or in an}- thing else while making a friend 
of the bottle. Every other element of manhood treated in 
this book goes overboard with the will. What are perse- 
verance, or aim, or self-reliance, or self-assertion, or any thing 
without will.'' We simply cite you to the very highest 
authority on the laws of mind, and he sa}'s, if you would 
hold your place in the world as a man you must avoid all 
alcoholic drinks — all stimulants and opiates. 

There never was a time when invincible will was so neces- 
sary to success as in this century. Every vocation adver- 
tises for herculean laborers. Enter the lists wherever you 
may, you will find giants stripped for the contest. The con- 
flict is not only a severe one, it is largely one of endurance. 
Men who have written their names high have been content 
to labor and to wait. Their philosophy has always sought 
ivithin themselves Jor the cause of their slow advancement. 
They felt that their opportunities were as good as those of 
others, and that the world was doing them justice, but they 
had not yet done themselves justice. 

More preparation was needed, and longer application. 



138 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

No great thing is, or can be, done witliout these in a large 
degree. Friends, learning, opportunity, are all valuable, but 
they are as nothing without burning enthusiasm that will 
not cool, and a living conviction, like Vallandingham's, that 
you can not die, for your mission is not fulfilled. Take 
those dull-eyed, listless, indifferent men — bankrupts — who 
once had a hope in life, but are now dragging through a 
miserable existence — those who are proverbially dissatisfied 
with all the world — and they have lacked enthusiasm, en- 
durance and will. 

Every man suffers who has a want supplied before it is 
consciously felt. Where every want is anticipated, where 
every possible desire is courted, and where every side of the 
many-sided nature is filled to surfeit, there is no room given 
for natui-al development, and no opportunit}' for \-igorous 
growth. To this stuffing process of home and school must 
the charge of failure in many lives be laid. Over-care sates 
and enervates. The boy who can get onl\' half the clothes 
he wants, who can go to only half the places he wants to, 
who has only half the money he needs, who has onl}' half 
the college years he feels he must have, will find in this 
plentitude of wants a stimulus that will carry hiin to noble 
achievements; and the j'outh who has all these provided 
before he ever feels the sting of want; has the greatest incen- 
tive to action plucked out of his life. 

Look at Warren Hastings. He sprang from an ancient 
and illustrious race, but in infancy he was left dependent 
upon a distressed grandparent. Clothed in peasant's garb, 
the daily sight of the lands which his ancestors possessed, 
and which had passed into the hands of strangers, filled his 
young brain with wild projects. " He loved to hear stories 
of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, of their gener- 



WILLPOWER. 139 

ous housekeeping, their loyalty and their valor. On one 
bright summer day, the boy, then seven years old lay on the 
bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of 
his house to join the Isis. There, as three score and ten 
years later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which 
through all the turns of his eventful career, was never aban- 
doned : he would recover the estates which had belonged to 
his fathers — he would be Hastings of Daylesford. 

This purpose, formed in infancy and -poverty^ grew 
stronger as his intellect expanded and his fortune rose. He 
pursued his plan with that calm but indomitable force of will 
which was the most striking peculiarity of his character. 
When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty million Asiatics, 
his hopes, amid all the cares of war, finance and legislation, 
still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long public life, 
so singularly checkered with good and evil, with glory and 
obloquy, had at length closed forcAcr, it was to Daylesford 
that he retired to die. 

The world owes the brilliant career of Frederick the 
Great to the ill-treatment he received from his unnatural 
father. Up to the age of twenty, his father beat him 
. cruelly, then piu'sued him through manhood, imprisoned 
him, exiled him, condemned him as a deserter, and sen- 
tenced him to death. Finally the old king's tyranny culmi- 
nated by offering Frederick freedom and money if he would 
renounce all right to the throne. He had suffered enough, 
and he indignantly replied : " I accept, if my father will 
declare that I am not his son." He ascended the throne 
without governmental culture or the respect of his subjects. 
His heart was chilled; he had not a friend; he did not even 
love his wife; he listened to no counsel; he was cabinet, 
constitution and state; he was transformed into a mighty 



140 • THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

despot, whose sole thought was the aggrandizement of 
Prussia. 

Never did neglect and the pressure of want so transform 
a rhapsodical voluptuar}^ He at once broke the " Prag- 
matic Sanction," hurled his troops against Maria Theresa, 
overran Silesia, and before Europe could overcome her 
astonishment at the audacit}' of the pretense, returned to 
Berlin a conqueror. The following spring he sallied to Moll- 
witz. A battle was fought and won, but the dought}' 
Frederick couldn't stand the smell of gunpowder and the 
whiz of bullets. He so far lost his self-command as to 
gallop six miles from the scene of action. 

It seemed that he was without genius or tact, and was 
compelled to learn ever}' thing he undertook. He was 
a willing student. He now set out to learn the art of war, 
and study the wants of his people. He was soon menaced 
by three powers, with six hundred thousand troops, while he 
was able to put but one hundred and sixty thousand men 
into the field. But his will could supply the deficit, and in 
an instant the rich electorate of Saxony was overflowed by 
sixt}' thousand Prussian troops, filled with the energies of 
their king, who had set his face against all Europe, and, 
single-handed, was hewing his way to real greatness. 

Through four defiles in the mountains the Prussians came 
pouring into Bohemia. On the sixth of May was fought, 
under the walls which, a hundred and thirty years before, 
had witnessed the victory of the Catholic league and the 
flight of the unhappy Palatine, a battle more bloody than any 
which Europe saw during the long inter\'al between Malpla- 
quet and Eylau. The personal valor of Frederick had 
grown since MoUwitz, for he was everj'where present in the 
thickest of the fight, animating his troops, directing the 



M'lLL-POWER. 141 

charges, and anon grasping a gun from the hand of a soldier 
and leveling it at the enemy. His character for personal 
courage was re-established. 

The dearl}--bought victory was followed by defeats on 
ever}' hand. His capital was pillaged and burned. The 
crops of his territor\- had failed. His people were discon- 
tented and star\ing; his own kinsmen were rebellious, and 
his officers could not act in concert for their riwilries. 
Never was king plunged in deeper gulf of disaster not to be 
overwhelmed. But dire necessit}- was the onl}- power that 
could create will and genius for this monarch. Twenty 
hours out of t\vent}'-four he now spent in stud\-ing tactics 
and in reorganizing his scattered forces. When fall came 
the net seemed to have closed completely around him. The 
Russians were spreading devastation through his eastern 
provinces. Silesia was overrun by the Austrians. A great 
French arm}' was advancing from the west. Frederick 
extricated himself from his triangular trap with dazzling 
glor}-, in thirty days. At Breslau he met the last of the 
mighty powers that were pitted against him. His coolly 
conceived plans, his adroit maneuvers and the a\^'ful charge 
of his squadrons were never more effective than on this day. 
tie had now triumphed over three powers, the weakest of 
which had more than three times his resources. He returned 
to his capital confessedly the greatest general of the age. 

Frederick returned to a triumphant but bankrupt nation. 
He at once addressed himself to the necessities of his peo- 
ple. Taxes were remitted in the most distressed pro\inces. 
The pay of all state officers became nominal, and the court 
was conducted with the most rigid economy, Frederick 
himself being the most frugal of all the household; and 



142 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

when he came to be buried, he was clothed in the shirt of 
his valet, for he had not a decent one of his own. 

Whenever a man is thus willing to leave luxur}' and ease, 
and be willing to grow into success through the toilsome 
process of defeat and experience, he may safely put his aim 
very high, for he has a force of character that will surel}- 
drive him to ultimate greatness. 

The school of adversity develops the highest types of 
manhood. The nation, or the work such an one leaves, 
is grounded upon a sure foundation. The men who flash 
up like corruscating sky-rockets, generally fall, and their 
work with them, as rapidly as they have risen. This is a 
meteoric age. Men feel they must bound to success in a 
day, or they will never make a creditable showing. It is 
true some men, like Jim Fisk and Ralston, flash through the 
universe as though astride a comet. But, by the flickering 
light of their sparks as they go out of the world, is to be 
seen a broken bank or an insolvent railroad. It is best not 
to accept as models of will-power the men who are stunning 
the world by their dashing achievements, but to take those 
men of solid character, who are cool and self-reliant, who 
never lose their grip on their ultimate aim, and who do 
more for themselves than nature has ever done for them. 

In connection with will-power one needs a willing heart. 
No matter to what task one goes, if he does not carry a 
willing heart into it, he will find his labor given for failure 
and discontent. Drafted men may be as well drilled and 
courageous, but the)^ never gain as splendid victories as the 
volunteers. A cheerful, hearty espousal of the cause in 
hand blows the flame of determination to a white heat. 
There may be some hope for a man who actually and 
earnestly works, even though he dislikes his calling. But 



WILLPOWER. 143 

his hope should be limited, for his success can only be 
moderate. 

Look at Sidney Smith. What genius and talent he 
possessed. But, buried in Yorkshire, a poor parish priest, 
he disliked his situation, and though he resolved to like it, 
and honestl)' strove so to do, yet the discontent was never 
fully lifted from his heart; and the intellect that could have 
irradiated the world was stunted, and but half did its work. 
Patrick Henry disliked every thing into which he drifted or 
his father drove him, until he happened on to the law. 
There love and capacity met, and he was a made man. 
Samuel Drew was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and lived, 
as he said, " like a toad under a harrow." He was so 
dissatisfied with life that he determined to become a pirate 
and smuggler. But this same Drew lived to be an eminent 
minister and a great author. The force of will that would 
run the hazard of smuggling, or pound shoe leather all 
night that he might " run " all day, when directed to some- 
thing that /illed his heart with aspiration, and was congenial 
to his tastes, enabled him to work with an enthusiasm that 
knew no abatement, and permitted him to close his life in 
peace, plenty, and honor. Cultivate your will-power, uniting 
to it a burning enthusiasm for your calling, because it is a 
noble and worthy calling, and because you feel that you can 
do by and for it what no one has ever done before. 




i^mj^-^ fwp- 



There is a tide in the affairs of men. 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 
Onnitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 

— 'ihahsfeare. 

Tact clinches the bargain; 

Sails out of the bay; 
Gets the vote in the Senate 

Spite of Webster or Clay, 




"T^IMII^I %M^, 




JTRAIGHTFORWARD coura<,-e, enterprise, and 
good faith, are truly fertile with results and with 
rewards. They are the ordinary means by which 
the gradual changes in life are efTected. Bej^ond this there 
is the vague, vast chapter of incident, which seems capri- 
cious, but is a regular part of life's on-goings. As the great 
natural gaps in the coast ranges draw the gentle sea breeze 
into their funnels, and then send them on with hurricane 
power over the broad plains be3'ond, so all moral move- 
ments tend to a focus. All nature seeks a climax. The 
common circumstances of life move on in their wonted 
course; albeit, there is a power inappreciable to the common 
eye that draws them to the funnel. They strike that focus 
— the event within itsell is of no more brilliancy than a 
thousand other events — but with their gathered power they 
burst over vast territories of action, influencing untold 
results. Greece won greater victories than Marathon, and 
Persia received more crushing defeats; but that battle 
occurred at the crisis of national life, when it made secure 
the liberties of Greece and bid her civilization and culture 
instill a new life into all the nations of earth. 

Dean Alford said: " There are moments that are worth 



146 TUE GENIUS OF INVUHTliT. 

more tiian years. We can not help it: there is no propor- 
tion between spaces of time in importance nor in value. A 
sick man may have the unwearied attendance of his physi- 
cian for weeks, and then may perish in a minute because 
he is not b}\ A stra}', unthought-of five minutes may 
contain the event of a life. And this all-important moment, 
thie moment disproportionate to all other moments, who can 
tell when it will be upon us.^ " Men who, like Dean Alford, 
have let a five minutes stra}" awa}" unthought of, and then 
have waked up to find that it contained the event of years, 
are not slow to appreciate the value of these immortal pas- 
sages in life; but to appreciate them before they come, and 
to throttle them as they pass, is the act upon which a life's 
history often turns. 

There are whole multitudes of men who, as they go 
tottering down the hill of life, take a retrospect of their early 
years, and are able to see distinctly where they missed their 
chance, and because of it have been floundering in the mire 
ever since. There is an astonishing amount of hind-sighted- 
ness in the world. 

Men are every day losing their confidence in chance-work. 
They are coming to regard a happ}' chance as simpl}' an 
occasion which sums up and brings to a result pre^"ious 
training. Accidental circumstances are nothing except to 
men who have been trained to take advantage of them. A 
great occasion is worth to a man just what his antecedents 
have enabled him to make of it. Erskine affords a striking- 
illustration of this thought. He started at the bar without 
social connections and under most discouraging circumstan- 
ces. He was poor, and had no old lawyer to " feed " him a 
case. He looked forward to a weary waiting for success. 
He was on starvation's brink when he received his first 



TURNING POINTS. 147 

retainer. But one shilling was left in his pocket. He was 
preparing to start to the country to secure, if possible, a 
small loan, when he sprained his ankle, and was forced to 
abandon the trip. Had he made that trip, he might have 
remained on the back benches of the court-room, a briefless 
attorney forever, or would have revived his rusty commis- 
sion in the army for bread and butter. 

Captain Baillie called on him and found him confined with 
his ankle. Erskiiie agreed to defend him against the prose- 
cution brought b}' Lord Sandwich, which he did triumph- 
antly, and at once passed to the head of the English bar. 
Even after the brief was handed to him he would not have 
figured as more than a silent attorne}- in the case, had not a 
series of accidental circumstances favored him. Four senior 
barristers had been retained; he had been retained for the 
sake of old acquaintance; he could not hope to be heard 
after these distinguished advocates, and so let the matter go, 
But, fortunatel}', the affidavits were so long, running through 
the whole course of the Admiralty, and one of the counsel 
so tedious — "a tediousness aggravated by the circumstance 
that one of them was afflicted with strangury, and had to 
retire once or twice in the course of his argument" — that 
the court was adjourned till next day. 

Erskine had the afternoon and night before him. Never 
did man harness minutes to better advantage. Possessed of 
an iron constitution, he came to court the next day as ^•igor- 
ous as ever. The Court was now fresh, and its faculties 
wide awake. Of the young attorney's effort Lord Camp- 
bell said: "It was the .most wonderful forensic effort of 
which we have any account in British annals." Erskine 
says: "I have since flourished, but ha^•e alwaj's blessed 
God for the providential strangury of poor Hargrave." 



148 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Within four years he was granted, at the suggestion of 
Lord Mansfield, letters patent of precedence at the bar. 
From his defense of the impeached Lord Gordon, to his 
triumphant vindication of Home Tooke, he sustained the 
dazzling grandeur of his debut. Seldom has a brilliant start 
in life— perhaps the entire success of a life — been owing to 
so many lucky circumstances. Yet, who does not sec that 
every chance would have been shorn of its power to the 
one-briefed attorne}-, if he had not, by former study, self- 
culture, and great decision of character, prepared himself 
to seize upon this crisis of his life and out of its unpromising 
materials hew his destiny.? 

Charles XII of Sweden was impoverishing his people and 
wasting his own life with the voluptuous attaches of his 
court when Peter the Great thought to make conquest of 
his kingdom, and, allied with Denmark and Poland, pro- 
ceeded to march upon his soil. The boy king, who had 
never denied himself a pleasure, and who was not recog- 
nized as having any ability bc3'ond court manners, was sud- 
denly transformed into a stern soldier. He was about to be 
dishonored and his crown taken from his brow. He dis- 
missed his courtiers, and drew his sword never to sheath it 
again. He banished wine from his board, coarse bread was 
often his only food, and he not unfrequently slept on the 
ground, wrapped in his cloak. Augustus sent Aurora von 
Konigsmark with the hope of entangling Charles into some 
intrigue. The young king refused to see the beauty; and, 
furnishing her instant passport out of his camp, also sent 
word that he had quit his chamber and was going forth to 
embrace his enemies. 

He concentrated his army with a Napoleonic rapidity, 
fell on the Danes, overwhelmed them, and dictated the 



TURNING POINTS. 149 

terms of peace in six weeks after the declaration of war. 
He conducted campaigns under adverse circumstances, 
moved his army in the dead of winter, and gave battle to 
vastly outnumbering forces. He retained his own throne, 
and seated and unseated kings. He carried on wars for 
eighteen years with an army so far inferior to the enemy 
in numbers that it would have disheartened Caesar or Hanni- 
bal. He maintained his aggressive spirit to the last. 

You know not how much everlasting fate hangs on "trifles 
light as air; " a single deed, a word, a frown, a spider's web, 
may become the turning point of destiny. Sallust says a 
periwinkle led to the capture of Gibraltar. The bullet 
which accidentally struck Gustavus on the field of Lutzen, 
turned the course of history. Luther was inspired to his 
great undertakings by reading the life of John Huss; and 
William Carey entered on his sublime labors as a missionary 
under the influence of " Captain Cook's Voyages." A 
verger, after replenishing an oil lamp in the Pisa Cathedral, 
left it swinging to and fro. Galileo, seeing it, conceived the 
idea of measuring time by a pendulum. A spider's web 
suspended across a garden path resulted in Sir Samuel 
Brown inventing the suspension bridge. Lounging on a 
pile of lumber, Brunei noticed a ship-worm boring its way 
into a piece of wood with its well-armed head, and then 
daub the roof and sides with its varnish; he accepted the 
lesson, and tunneled the Thames. 

Those men who are successful in making turning-points 
possess large individuality and self-assertion. They repose 
in such a wealth of power that their spring is similar to that 
of a tiger from its lair. No pale thoughts e\-er quiver and 
fluctuate in their minds. They are always ready, rapier in 
hand, knowing what thrusts and turns of the fatal blade 



150 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

most surely disarm their antagonists. Franklin, when quite 
a youth, entered a printing otfice in London and inquired if 
he could get employment as a printer. " Where are you 
from.^'' inquii-ed the foreman. "America," was the reply. 
"Ah!" said the Ibreman, "from America! A lad from 
America seeking emplo}-mcnt as a printer! Well, do you 
reall}' understand the art of printing.-' Can you set type.'' " 
Franklin stepped to a case and in a few moments set up the 
following passage from the first chapter of John's Gospel: 
" Nathaniel saith unto him, ' Can an}- good thing come out 
of Nazareth.? ' Philip saith unto him, ' Come and see! ' " 

This instantaneous selfhood is a vital matter. In plebeian 
or patrician it is the indication of a ruler. One must step 
forth in the confidence of power if he would have the world 
recognize him. Cassius asserts what many men do not find 
to be true until their last opportunity has departed, when he 
says: 

" Men at some time are masters of their fates: 
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings." 

This same principle holds true in the histories of all men 
at some time in life. They are thrown into a mood by force 
of circumstances, wherein some power touches them — a sort 
of good genius — and the whole current of their being flows 
with renewed vigor. Did not Faraday, a poor bookseller's 
bo}', with his soul longing lor a knowledge of chemistry, 
scratch down notes from Humphrey DavN'^s lectures, and, 
on having the temerity to send them to the great head of 
the Royal Institution, receive an appointment there in 
which he laid the foundation for his splendid career.? When 
the timorous Crabbe called on Burke with his labored 
and graphic poetry, to secure a momentar}- glance from 



TURNING POINTS. 151 

that busy statesman's eye, did not the prescient remark, 
"Good! There's genius there!" send the EngUsh vicar 
away a made man? Columbus, weary under the heat of a 
southern sun, once asked' for a drink of water at a convent 
door. The prior, won by his manly bearing, grew inter- 
ested in his notions of' discovery, and ga\e him the introduc- 
tions he so sorely needed. In return Columbus gave to 
Castile and Aragon a new world. 

There is a time when the mind is full of active, ferment- 
ing thought, and seems to wait for the impregnating moment 
that shall fertilize it. How often we touch along on supreme 
moments and know it not ! Lord Eldon, then plain John 
Scott, made his famous, first speech in court, saying, after- 
ward, he felt all the time that his wife and children were 
tugging at his robe, beseeching him to do his best; and 
when his fee was handed him, thought of nothing but the 
joy it would bring to that poor home, until an attorney 
whispered in his ear, as he left the house, " Young man, 
your bread and butter is made." Unknown to himself, he 
had already started for the Great Seal. 

Such incidents do not happen so infrequently after all, but 
onl)' the observing, decisive men know when they come. 
The man and the hour must approach simultaneously. 
Each must be worthy the other. There are lawyers who, 
if a golden opportunity came to them, would sit down and 
tell the judge that they could not go on without their senior 
counsel. There are arm}' officers who, in every case of 
emergenc}', are at a dead stand-still if their general does not 
tell them what to do. There are college professors who are 
so drilled into the ruts of the text-books that they would 
not be able to add an original idea in teaching the class, if 
their lives were the forfeit. What is the value of oppor- 



152 THE GENIUS OF IX DUST RY. 

tunity to such men? The man who has a sudden chance 
presented to him must have a trained mind and practical 
talent to enable him to meet the emergency, 'i hese are the 
occasions for the exhibition of abilit}*: they can not create 
ability. So, in what appear to be matters of luck, the 
element of chance does not very much prevail. Worthy 
men will, in the \'ast majority of cases, come to the front, 
and accident, or want of accident, onl}' temporaril}- retards 
them. 

Start two men of equal scholarship into the race of life, 
one a genius and the other a mediocre man. While the 
genius of one may accomplish great feats, the wise discrim 
ination of the other will enable him to utilize ever}- oppor- 
tunity that comes within his reach, and attain more 
beneficial results for himself and for the world. This is 
why mediocrity so oft outstrips genius. An}' man will 
make a success in life who makes the best possible use of 
the circumstances by which he is surrounded. The lack of 
this practical ability to turn every incident to its best use, is 
our most fruitful cause of failure. While the man of 
prodigious attainments is upon the mountains, tugging away 
at the stars, the half lettered, but thoroughl}' disciplined, 
man of business is pushing along the valle}', through dust 
and stones, to fame and fortune. 

Profound scholarship often proves an obstacle to a man's 
rising in the world. It would not, if all men were equall}' 
educated; but the larger half are deprived of college advan- 
tages, and rehing on their wits to make up the deficit, they 
secure tact and generalship that intellectual qualities rarely 
possess. The intellectual man knows much of books; he 
is deep in the sciences; he is versed in the lore of the 
ancients; he is polished and classical; he is an acquisition in 



TUUNINO POINTS. 153 

the drawing-room, and of some wilue on the platform, 
or before a elass. But, alas for him, in the whirl and strife 
among keen competitors ! Like a well-formed horse, fod on 
oil-cake, he is sleek and symmetrical, well-rounded, and 
a beauty to behold; but he was not built for a load, and is 
too fat for the race-course. 

Men who have had their heads inordinately stufTed with 
Greece and Rome, until they are beside themselves with 
much learning, unfortunately have little or no edge to their 
native character. They are so highly polished that the les- 
sons of experience glance off, taking no hold: cultivated to 
such an unnatural size that their vigor is all gone; so self- 
poised they have no enthusiasm; so civilized they can not 
strike a bargain; so refined they are unfitted to descend to 
the drudgery requisite to success; so full of general splendor 
they can put a focus on no particular object; so indefinite in 
all their characteristics that they utterly lack force and 
incisiveness. Thus they sleep through the world, in a go- 
easy sort of wa}-, keeping their friends in constant expectation 
of their performing some great feat, and eventually turn into 
their graves, not having drawn anything but blanks. On 
the other hand, the men who are thrown out of school with 
but a partial education, and no symmetry in their develop- 
ment; who have rough, jagged corners of character; who, 
like the gnarled and knotted oaks on the mountain side, 
between fighting the storms for their place above, and quar- 
relling with the rocks to get a hold for their roots beneath, 
grow to untold size and might; who have just enough edu- 
cation to equip them for life's battles, and still so little as to 
give them a profound consciousness of their ignorance — such 
men as these will be constantly warring with their fate, 
striving to overcome all disadvantages; necessitated to keep 



154 THE GENIUS OB' INDUSTliY 

their wits at tlieir finger's ends, they will be forced into self- 
reliance, and gradually become bold, venturesome and 
victorious. 

These men ha^■e enough individuality left in them to do 
things their own way. Whenever they come in conflict with 
your smooth fellows, their horns gore them to death. Their 
original traits are unshorn. They are trained to a high 
degree of vigor; and, prompted forward by necessity, they 
rush into the combat with no other intention than to win. 
Is this not almost universall}' true.^ are not our half-educated, 
strong-willed, self-reliant men the ones that accomplish our 
most serviceable work in e\"ery department in life.' The 
men who control the commerce — the mone^'-makers — east 
and west, are these vigorous and self made men. They are 
are our leading lawyers, from New York to San Francisco. 
They are our most successful merchants. They are our 
controlling statesmen, like Webster and Clay. And even 
many of our greatest scientists and discoverers were never 
accepted as erudite scholars. 

This is not denying the worth of learning The estimate 
placed on intellectual training, elsewhere in this volume, 
shows how much we prize it. But it is an historical fact 
that soft hands have not performed the world's great labors. 
The men who have made history and shaped the destiny of 
nations, were not trained in college halls nor moulded by the 
culture of the drawing-room. When we see the world's 
shining orator living in a cave, and training his voice against 
the oceans's roar; when we see Constantine, who never read 
a book, conquering Rome and giving a feeble church the 
power by which she swayed the destinies of Europe for a 
thousand years ; when we see Charles the Great, barely able 
to sign his own name; when we see Walpole holding power 



TURNING POINTS. 155 

for thiity years and scorning lea-rning; when we see Frank- 
lin, who wandered Hke an Arab through the streets in liis 
earl}' years, robbing the skies of lightning and circumvent- 
ing the machinations of hostile powers; when we see the 
" profoundly ignorant " Jackson managing the government 
with a vigor unknown before; when we see the rough, un- 
hewn backwoodsman, Lincoln, become the idol of his party 
and give freedom to four million slaves — we feel convinced 
that, whatever elegant scholarship may be worth, the experi- 
ence gained from actual life is the wisdom that rules the 
world. 

Experience shows that a mind trained by necessity and 
adversity is far more operative in all the sterner conflicts of 
mankind than one refined by classic lore. That man who 
comes to a contest relying on himself, feeling, it ma}' be, 
that in all matters of general knowledge he is far inferior to 
his opponent, but that he is master of all the elements to be 
used in this struggle, will not be easily overthrown. Hun- 
dreds of men have grown rich and influential whose college 
hall was a log school-house, whose seats were split logs, and 
whose curriculum was the three R's — Readin, Ritin, and 
Rithmetic. Endowed with honest purposes and strong com- 
mon-sense, they gathered, in their rustic retreats, the hard 
facts of practical wisdom about men and things. When 
they came to strike tor results in the great arena of life, 
every blow was planted with telling effect. They hurled 
themselves upon their opponents with unerring judgment, 
and before their headlong dash the gorgeous graduate was 
driven out of sight. 

Another highly important particular is the time of doing 
a thing. It is not enough to do the right thing: it must be 
done at the right time, in the right place. Some one said of 



156 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTBT. 

Andy Johnson that, " he could do the rightest thing at the 
wrongest time of any man in America." The world is full 
of these impractical people, whose hearts are bursting with 
good purposes, but who always perpetrate them on poor 
subjects. It is a crime for one to do a right act at the 
wrong time. A man may be an acute and sagacious writer, 
and be able to comprehend the thousand conditions that 
fence a question in, and solve them all with his pen, but when 
he descends from his solitary elevation to cast his efforts 
upon the world, if it is not the fullness of time, he is marched 
off to oblivion as a failure. 

Butler's Iludibras was an uninviting, sarcastic poem, but 
the lucky time of its advent on the world secured it an en- 
dnring fame. It was hurled at the cant and pious pretense 
of the Cromwellian authorities, just after the Restoration, 
when Puritanical severity of manners was beginning to look 
ludicrous to English eyes. So with George Eliot's, " Daniel 
Deronda : " if given to the public twenty years ago, it would 
have been a very dry story; but coming up and grappling, 
in its novel form, with the nationalizing of the Jews in Pales- 
tine, in the very hours when the Rothschilds were drawing a 
mortgage on the Vatican; when Russia was trampling the 
crescent in the dust ; when Disraeli was flashing his scimiter in 
the face of all the diplomats; when the Jews wre all disturbed 
by the doctrine of re-colonization, and were moving to the 
gift of Jehovah by hundreds — it strikes the current of uni- 
versal demand, and was the pronounced success. 

It is tact our unsuccessful men lack, not talent. They are 
are filled with soarings after the infinite, but they never 
know what to do with the finite. It is tact that makes men 
respectable, obtains position, and gets riches. Talent is 
intellectual; tact has no necessary connection with knowl- 



TURNING POINTS. 157 

edge. Talent solves all the abstruse, hidden, and complex 
difficulties, through laborious mental study; tact feels that 
this is right, dives at the result, and comes up victorious 
without an effort. The world worships talent, but engages 
tact to do its business. In all the real concerns of life tact 
wins the race before talent gets a fair start. Those rough 
and smooth " Scourges of God," and " Darlings of the 
Human Race," like Julius Ccesar, Charles V of Spain, 
Charles XII of Sweden, were sufficient men, standing on 
legs of iron, with sword and staff — tact and talent — in 
hand. They were equal as officers to their office; as cap- 
tains to their wars; as ministers to their states, and who, as 
emperors, could have spared their empires. They were 
students of the forum and field. The world was their 
estate, passing events their commerce, and victor}' their 
privilege. 

The world admires Coriolanus and Gracchus, Lafayette 
and Wellington, Washington and Grant, because of their 
pure manhood. They are men who fill Clarendon's portrait 
of Hampden — "who was of an industry and vigilance not 
to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of 
parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, 
and of a personal courage equal to his best parts." 

Few men are able to do many things, as did Leonardo de 
Vinci. But when they undertake one, and sink into a 
statute-book or machine, the very singleness of the under- 
taking seals their doom. Sir Isaac Newton adorned mathe- 
matics, expounded the prophecies, and was a good master of 
the mint. Niebuhr mastered the Arabic, Russian and 
Slavonic languages, and became the first of historians; 3'et 
he was so efficient in the management of business that the 
Danish Government appointed him commissioner of the 



158 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

national finances. Daru could not be a courtier, but he 
could write books, enter into philosophical disquisitions, and, 
at the same time be the most efficient prime minister France 
ever had, "All things have two handles," the old oracle 
said. It is a man's own fault if he grasps but one. 

Again, the man who can discover something new that the 
world reall}' needs, will find in it the biith of a new success. 
The world waited from the days of the Ptolemies for 
Stephenson to come. It waited from the first stroke of the 
manufacturer and the first effort at commerce for Watt. 
Europe and America waited for Cyrus Field from 1620 
until 1 868. And civil liberty mourned and would not be 
comforted, from the days of the first despot until Columbus 
loosed from Palos and started for a new world. 

An observing- habit is one of the surest of agencies to pre- 
pare one for coming events, and thereby enable him to trim 
sails and take the tide at its flood. The multitude are able 
to see an opportunity after it has passed. Only the observ- 
ing man, who carries his wits uppermost, is able to see 
coming events by the shadows they cast before. And yet 
the world is always wondering how it is that this man is 
in the nick of time with every thing he does. Close obser- 
vation is much a matter of habit. The man who starts in 
rife with the habit of thoughtlessness, who never sees any 
thing, starts heavily weighted in the race. He has a doubly 
hard conquest on his hands. He must conquer the instinct 
of habit and conquer the world. Careless observation has 
an effect upon all our actions, much as the plague of Athens 
which, Thucydides tells us, drew all other diseases into its 
one prevalent type of illness. The great discoverers have 
been observing, thoughtful men. Columbus and Cook never 
let a sea-weed float by their vessels unnoticed. Audubon 



TURN I NO POINTS. 159 

and Humboldt would follow a chirping bird or skulking ani- 
mal for miles into the pathless forest, and return precisely b}' 
the same route. Clay and Pitt could reply to a four-hours' 
speech, argument by argument, without the use of notes. 
It is this faculty which so blesses Spurgeon with daily food 
for his pulpit, and it grants to Beecher the material for his 
illustrations, without which his sermons would lose much of 
their striking power. 

To get on successfully there must be a settled, stolid 
determination to that end. " To show capacity," a French- 
man describes as the end of a speech in debate; " No," said 
an Englishman, " but to set your shoulder to the wheel — to 
advance the business." Sir Samuel Romilly refused to 
speak before popular assemblies, and confined himself to the 
House of Commons, where a measure could be carried by a 
speech. The high positions in England are not beds of 
ease. The man who wins his spurs there must do frightful 
amounts of labor. Peel " knew the Blue Books by heart." 

An Englishman is long-headed. He is willing to bide his 
time, but when the time comes he strikes with awful ferocity. 
His island is renowned for its breed of mastiffs, so fierce 
that, when their teeth are set, you must cut their heads off 
to part them. The people are like their dogs: the English 
wrestle is main force pitted against main force, the planting 
of foot to foot, fair pla}' and open field — a rough tug, with- 
out trick or dodging, until one or both come down ; like old 
King Ethewald, who planted himself at Wimborne, and 
said, "he would do one of two things — or there live, or 
there lie." 

An essayist, speaking of this trait, says: "The English- 
man speaks with all his body. His elocution is stomachic, 
as the American's is labial. He betrays himself at all 



160 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTHY. 

points, in his manners, in his respiration, and the inarticulate 
noises he makes in clearing his throat — all signiticant of 
burly strength. He has stamina; he can take the initiative 
in emergencies. He has that aplomb which results from a 
good adjustment of the moral and physical nature, and the 
obedience of all the powers to the will, as if the axis of" his 
eyes were united to his backbone, and only mo\"ed with the 
trunk." The American needs more of this qualit}' in his 
character. He is as much on the alert as the Englishman, 
but he lacks that determined following of a course that 
makes a man superior to difficulties, and chains destin}' to 
his chariot-wheels. 

Another power that gives one a good turn in going 
■to success is self-advertising. Merit is not a failure, and 
modesty is not a humbug; but if a man would get on to his 
destiny by the fast line, he must, blow his own trumpet. 
Most men have come to the conclusion that a little tinge of 
charlatanism is needed to give fla^■or to a fine achievement. 
Acting upon this doctrine, merchants, lawyers, doctors, and 
even ministers, are seen flaunting to the public eye the ban- 
ner of self-praise. 

The art of self-advancement is not so much to do a thing 
well, as to get a thing that has been moderately well done 
largely talked about. It has been said that " the works of 
DeQuincey, without newspaper puffing, would find purchas- 
ers only among pastry-cooks and barbers;" while the lasl 
sensational novel, That Husband of Mine, by means of 
staring posters and gushing notices, has., in si.x weeks, run 
up a sale of a hundred thousand copies. What is more 
common than to see the brazen-faced doctor, who has just 
arrived, ignore all the other physicians, hang up his diploma 
by his front window, and in lour months have half the 



TURNING POINTS. 161 

community working to bring him the practice of the other 
halt" } 

Who has not seen a young attorney walk into the bar for 
the hrst time, and plead his ten-dollar case moderatel}- well, 
but. '.n his self-sufficient wa}-, every gesture was the flash of 
a conqueror's scimeter;' the very tone of his voice seemed to 
say, " / am master of the situation," and his self-reliant 
demeanor made every one in the court room feel like hand- 
ing him a retainer's fee. Andy Johnson was at one time the 
most popular politician in the Union, and to set up one of 
his speeches would exhaust the Fs in a metropolitan pub- 
lishing office. Is it not a matter of common occurrence for 
a second-rate man to be introduced into a social circle, and, 
by a few aptly-turned con\-ersations, make himself the lead- 
ing man of the company.'* How many men went into the 
army corporals and came out colonels, without bravery 
or adventitious circumstances to aid them, simply because 
they courted headquarters and acted all the time as though 
they were colonels.'' 

No matter how sharpl}' the moralist ma}' censure this 
polic\', the greater portion of our successful tradespeople are 
engaging in it. It is refreshing to see the medical and legal 
profession weeding out the quack advertisers from their 
associations, but the man who makes an advertisement out 
of himself can not be beheaded so easily, for this self-adver- 
tising is a part of the individualism of the man. Some of 
the richest wits that society possesses utter their finest 
conceits in a nervous, self-distrusting, stammering way, that 
damns them on their lips. On the other hand, some of the 
most solid talkers we have, innocently present themselves as 
the heroes of their every conversation, and it is done with 



162 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

such natural grace that the company falls in love with the 
hero. 

Some men will write two columns of original matter 
daily for some great paper for six months, and then apply at 
the office for a situation, and be told that they may come in 
on trial for a week or two. Another man will write an 
article, and even the newsboys will find him out. Gray was 
so morbidly sensitive that he shuddered when he saw his 
name in a newspaper. Byron dictated to reporters like a 
king. Now, shrewd business men ha^■e observed the natur- 
alness of this principle in some men, and the lack of it in 
others; and, noting the effect it had on their advancement, 
they have set about making it part of their stock in trade. 

This method of seeking for promotion can not be too 
stoutly condemned when it approaches the borders of " sharp 
practice." Success is not worth the sacrifice of a single 
honorable principle. If a man can not advance himself and 
his wares without descending to this sordid cunning., he will 
find small sales and small profits with a clear conscience to 
be the highest of rewards; but timidity about emphasizing 
one's eg'o, or pronouncing decidedly on the quality of his 
goods, is as far on the line of silliness as the other is on the 
line of viciousness. A man's good opinion of himself is a 
part of his capital. 

No man can hope to get on who thinks meanly of himself. 
The world seldom puts a higher estimate on a man than he 
puts on himself. Somehow, the man that thinks well of him- 
self, and acts well toward himself, will cheat us into thinking 
and acting in the same way toward him. Just so with his 
wares — if he speaks of them in a timid, half-confident sort 
of way, we feel just that way toward them, and we pass to 
the next door and buy the same brand of goods at ten per 



TURNING POINTS. 163 

cent, advance, going away happy, because the merchant has 
stamped them with his own self-assurance. 

There is a moral demand on e\ery man to place a good 
stout estimate upon himselt" and upon all with which he has 
to do. The one extreme of undue depreciation and the 
other extreme of supercilious puffing are to be avoided. 
But honor, in a stronger voice than success, calls for a credit- 
able estimate of himself and of his business. Who ever 
heard of Wellington or Bonaparte underrating his abilities.'' 
Neither were they e\er known foolishty to laud them. They 
knew what they were worth, and said so; and the world's 
confidence in their self-assertion helped them to success. 
The humble Nazarene was too honest and sincere to ever un- 
derspeak his own worth, even when his life was the forfeit. 
All the world can see why he ought to have moderated his 
claims at Pilate's bar; but he was too devoted to himself and 
what he had to do for this. So, every man's self and busi 
ness should be to him the the most important in all the world, 
and so grovind into his very blood and bone that he will 
speak its value in everything he does. 

There is another reason for this. Every man is taken up 
with his own concerns. He has but little time to notice the 
merits of others. Hence the man who incessantly obtrudes 
himself upon the eye, genteely persisting in his superior tal- 
ents, and continually reminding one of the special advantages 
of dealing with htin^ will at last force you into noticing him 
and purchasing his wares; while the man of equal parts in 
every sense, who retreats into some obscure corner and folds 
his arms in complacent humilit}', you seldom hear of and 
never think of patronizing. 

The man engaged in a business that the people never hear 
of would be in no worse predicament if he had no business. 



164 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Not that the people want to neglect unobtrusive merit; but, 
in the rush ^nd roar of these times, a man must get on an 
eminence and blow a loud trumpet if he would be heard and 
seen. The people are so busy they have no time to hunt up 
retreating merit. Indeed they have no disposition to do so. 
The practical world takes it for granted that an article of 
merit will be duly announced. As society is now organized 
a man must live up to his business; he must "point the toe," 
wear a seasonable hat, hold his head high, wear fashionable 
clothes and court the attention of" the world. 

Men who are simpl}- forward and impudent do not get on 
well. They may ride the tide for one day; but as sure as 
to-morrow comes, their worthlessness will be exploded, and 
they will sink deeper than if they had never risen at all. It 
is a common thing tor those who fail to sneer at those who 
succeed, and say that nothing but " brass " did it. Now, 
brass doubtless had something to do with it, but not all. It 
is simply impossible for a man possessing brazen-facedness 
alone to arrive at eminence in these days. Do not attempt 
to persuade yourself that puffing alone will carry you to your 
goal. It will doubtless bring the eye of the world upon 
)'ou; but when you enter upon the performance, should you 
fall short of your loft}' proclamations, }'ou have but sounded 
the trumpet for an awful rout. 

Without true merit no man can hope to succeed. There 
must be a basis of character and force, or else all ad\'ertise- 
ments will fail of good result. But merit is a fruitless thing 
if it goes unheralded. Merit is too often inactive. Well- 
matured and well -disciplined talent is alwa3's sure of a mar- 
ket, provided it exerts itself; but it must not cower at home 
and expect to be sought for. " It usually happens that those 
favored men have that valuable qualit}'' oi promptness and 



TUHNINQ POINTS. 165 

activity without which worth is a mere inoperative prop- 
erty." Tiie business of the world stands in need of merit, 
and its interests suffer e\-ery day because it comes not forward. 
It" upstarts and charlatans are to be made to keep their places, 
men of merit must discern the signs of the times, and 
go forward with promptness and decision, when ability is 
called for. 

A certain amount of self-advertising is essential to inspire 
a man with proper confidence in himself, and in his work. 
A man unimpressed with his own worth, or the dignit}' of 
his calling is apt to retire to the chimney corner, and feel 
that the world fails to appreciate him. It may be true that 
the world does not appreciate him, but has he ever showed 
his veins of gold to the world ? The acres that cover the 
Comstock lode would bring no more on the market than 
any other barren mountain tract if the wealth beneath had 
not been announced. Man}' men have a rich lode for the 
world, but they stay so close in their closets that a " pros- 
pector " can ne\'er get within reach of them. 

Conscious of your unde\eloped worth, set a good price on 
it. Reverence yourself as able to fill a high niche in the 
temple of 30ur calling. Never w^ait for the world to call 
3'ou by name. No matter whether 3'our name is Smith, or 
Jones, or Don Souza de Cabral. The world wants a man. 
If it is your pursuit, sound the charge, and rush to the work 
with all the alacrity, decision, tact, and self-confidence that 
a man ought to feel, knowing that he has been set apart, 
from the foundation of the world, for this ver}' purpose. 

Be pi^ompt, then, whenever the crisis arrives. The man 
who springs into the " imminent deadly breach " at that 
moment will carry oft' the laurels. No matter what the 
obstacles may be, they must be charged with determination, 



166 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRT. 

and carried, or you are defeated. " Sire, General Clarke 
can not combine with General Junot, for the dreadful fire of 
the Austrian batter}-." " Let him carry the batter}-." " Sire, 
ever}- regiment that approaches that heavy artillery is sacri- 
ficed. Sire, what orders.''" "Forward, forward!" The 
sullen " forward," was given along the line. The solid 
columns moved up amid the whirl of smoke and death; the 
battery was taken, and the battle won. 

Marshal your forces with \igor and skill, and plant them 
in the front with a wise ingenuit}-. Know }-ourself, and 
study the world. Be ready for that }-ou are equipped for, 
and plunge into it like a diver into the waters. Society is 
on the alert for full-orbed men. There is a lull and a lee- 
wind for every one to seize, if he will only be on the watch. 
Those electric men who haA-e taken the world by surprise 
have achieved their victoiies in these salient moments. 
Many of them ha\-e relied on recurring crisises and their skill 
to direct them for their success. Such a one said, '' Con- 
quest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain 
me!" 






■K|iii^ilif^. 






^iRMJ^'AtlTY' 



There is a great power in individuality. A man has half vvon the battle of 
life when he has learned how to keep hinnself out of other people. — W. T. 
Moore. 

The force of his own merit mal<es his way. — Shaksfcarc. 

Examples demonstrate the possibility of success. — Coltoii. 



I am as free as Nature first made man, 
Ere the base laws of servitude began, 



-Dry den. 





HIS is the era when Solomon's statement — " There 
is nothing new under the sun " — needs to be 
reversed. Every thing now " under the sun " 
seems new. And a philosophic fiddler has come to light 
who proposes b}' vibrations of musical sounds to se\'er the 
chains which suspend our vast bridges. 

In most of the callings of life, genius is at a discount, 
unless it includes the genius of originality. A man would 
pine away if he depended merely on the grit of endurance. 
There must be something worth while to endure for, or one 
would as well quit. The old methods are swiftl}' passing 
into obli\ion; stereotyped rules are breaking; every busi- 
ness is crying out for a new management. No merchant 
thinks now-a-days of " making a run " on old styles; actors 
become "bright, particular stars;" ph3-sicians make their 
regular professional tours; grocers, dr3'-goods men, and 
hardware men have their runners out all over the country 
with samples. If doctors can not get a patient, the}' ride 
to and fro an3-how; if lawyers can not secure a retaining 
fee, they retain themselves rather than be idle in the courts. 
To get on now, one must be both fi-esh and phenomenal. 
This was one of the secrets of Martin Luther's success with 
the masses. In a discussion over the driest dogmas, he 



170 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

would rise into the grandest outbursts of eloquence at 
unlooked-for times, confound his opponent, and rush his con- 
gregation on to his conclusions by the torrent of his rhetori- 
cal logic. George Francis Train, in his da}', commanded 
more attention than any other man on the American conti- 
nent, receiving the highest prices for his lectures; yet he 
was nothing if not phenomenal. The world often cries 
" crotchet " if a man persists in doing a thing after the fash- 
ion of his own mind; but these are the men who are always 
heard and always well paid. If Harvey had ceased his 
advocacy of blood circulation because one-half of the world 
cried "knave," and the other "fool," we might to-day have 
been ignorant of the use of the veins. 

The marked men of the world have been men of large 
individualit}'. Bacon and Buckle never waited for the apoc- 
alyptic angel to say "write." They found a door, forced it 
open, and entered; they spoke with authorit}', and their 
oracular utterances were always the precursors to victory. 

Some inen possess individuality, but they are afraid to 
assert it. They have confidence in all the world, but none 
in themselves. They are always playing the part of Cau- 
tious in the dialogue with Fidus: 

FiDus — Think you, Cautious, that right is right? 

Cautious — The question which you ask is one too hard 
For me alone to answer in direct words. 
So then, if right is not right, they sound alike, 
And this sound itself doth lead me to think 
There may be some affinity between the words. 
But this I will not now decide. Before 
We meet again, perhaps, the problem 
Will have passed through other heads, 
And coming to me without its mystery, 
I may, perchance, give some decision, 
Though it be just as wrong as rtg/it is right. 



ORIOINALITT. 171 

" Such men," says W. T. Moore, " expend their force 
on space. In Hfe's great conflicts, where decision and indi- 
vidual action are necessary, they hide themselves behind a 
fortress of trembling ?/i, or seek safety in the mysterious 
windings of endless circumlocutions. If you would be a 
man, you must stand up and look the world in the face; not 
impudently, but firmly. Be sure that the world sees you 
before you sit down. You have a right to be seen, if you 
are a man^ and if you are not a man, then beg the world 
to put baby clothes on }-ou, and send you back to the 
nursery." 

Men of large individuality do their own thinking, and 
are always ready to assume the responsibility of their con- 
duct. There is no hesitancy in their utterance; no uncertain 
meaning in their speech. Louis XIV won more with his 
words than with his sword. John J. Crittenden tells how 
this element in a man makes him overleap all barriers, and 
carry his point literally by storm, when he gives an instance 
of the Great Commoner's experience with the Missouri 
question : 

" It was in an evening sitting, while this question was yet 
in suspense, Mr. Clay had made a motion to allow one or 
two members to vote who had been absent when their 
names were called. The Speaker (Mr. Taylor), who, to a 
naturally equable temperament, added a most provoking 
calmness of manner when all around him was excitement, 
blandly stated, for the information of the gentleman, that 
the motion ' was not in order.' Mr. Clay then moved to 
suspend the rule forbidding it, so as to allow him to make 
the motion; but the Speaker, with imperturbable serenity, 
informed him that, according to the Rules and Orders, such 
a motion could not be received without the unanimous con- 



172 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRT. 

sent of the House. ' Then^^ said Mr. CLiy, exerting his 
voice even beyond its highest wont, ' / move to suspend 
ALL the rules of the House. A -way tvith them ! Is it to 
be endured that we shall be trammeled in our action by 
mere forms and technicalities at a moment like this, when 
the peace, and perhaps the existence, of this Union is at 
stake.?'" 

You have seen a blacksmith wield his sledge. He swings 
it in a reckless way; but somehow it falls exactly on the 
right spot, and fashions the iron to his wish. Undertake to 
do it just as he does, and you will fail. You may seize the 
handle at the same place, describe the same sweeping circle 
over the shoulder, but the chances are ten to one you will 
miss the spot. Can one execute a piece of statuary equal 
to Harriet Hosmer, just because he uses her hammer and 
chisel.'* Neither can you forge the blacksmith's iron. The 
power that fashions that is mind and muscle merged in 
individuality, and that you can not grasp. Efforts to appro- 
priate the skill and cunning of others generally end in 
disgrace. Each man is created an independent organism, 
and individuality is the leading characteristic in that organ- 
ism. Each man is thus so hedged about that he must, 
from within himselt', work out his destiny. An attempt to 
imitate another's power can only result in destroying one's 
own ability. 

Nowhere is there such a progeny of persistent imitators 
as in the literary field; and yet in no field is there such 
absolute demand for individualism. Let a writer's thought 
be wrought out as his own coinage : let him give himself to 
the people, whether in the ornate sentences of Wendell 
Phillips, or in the trite platitudes of Martin F. Tupper. In 
this way, if one can not secure admiration, he will at least 



ORIGINALITY. 173 

preserve himself. To be half }-ourself and half some one 
else, is, as BjTon sa}s — 

" So middling, bad were better." 

When Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers was 
published, at once every literary fledgling in England began 
to satirize his critics. It is said that half the Baptist 
preachers in the United Kingdom aflect Mr. Spurgeon, while 
hundreds of American pulpits are red-hot with the rhetori- 
cal cannonading of aspiring Talmages. Colonel Ingersoll, 
in the Cincinnati Convention of 1876, nominated James G. 
Blaine for President, in a speech that electrified the party. 
At once every partisan orator in the land eulogized Blaine, 
until we almost forgot that IIa}-es and Tilden were candi- 
dates. 

Sometimes there is a marked similarity in style that leads 
to unjust criticism. Emerson has been charged with study- 
ing and imitating Carlyle. There is a striking similarity in 
their philosophy, and also in their style of expression, their 
phraseology being of the same mold ; yet '' Einerson is not 
like Carlyle so much in an\- thing as in his originalit}'." 
There are two chapters in the Bible exactly alike, word for 
word; still each answers a special purpose, in its place. 
You may have the gesture, voice, or tjpe of expression 
possessed by another, but do not seek to change it at your 
peril. 

The \-alue of models must not be misunderstood. There 
is no advantage so great to a 3'oung man as having an , 
illustrious model before him. But he is not to imitate that 
model as the painter does the Last Supper. He is to find, 
in the perfection set before him, an incentive to action — a 
great, inspiring power that leads him to the same degree of 
excellence. A great example is like so many more pounds 



174 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

of steam turned on to the driving-wheels of the engine. 
They hurry the train up to the city ; but the steam is not the 
city. So the exemplar is a helping hand to lead his pupil 
on; but the exemplar is not the ''destiny;" he is onl}' a 
means used to reach the destiny. An illustrious teacher 
once said to his school: " You know what I have achieved; 
model after my industry and persistent labor, but do not 
imitate «/e." 

Originality anticipates the wants in its calling, and strives 
to supply them. And while it is unfortunately true that 
many inventors are compelled to yield up a controlling 
interest in their " goods " to some shrewd business manager, 
after all it frequently occurs that the}' reap more profit than 
if they had persistently kept the control in their own hands. 
The genius of invention and the genius of disposal seldom 
go together. 

Whatever the special feature of your originality may be 
it is best to cultivate it. Every effort to cultivate the other 
faculties will end in dissipating the vigor of this. Success 
is with the specialist. Silly men may cry out against one- 
idea men, but very seldom have men with two ideas 
accomplished any creditable work. John Stuart Mill may 
be poet, orator, and philosopher, metaphysician, politician, 
and botanist, yet how feeble are the results achieved by that 
capacious soul! What might he not have accomplished if 
he had subordinated all to one idea! Bonaparte was prolific 
with power in many directions, but he concentrated the 
whole force of his being on a single aim. and stamped him- 
self the military chieftain of the world. The Bonapartes of 
every calling have been one-idea men. The specialist 
always makes one thing shine, and this often atones for all 
the faults elsewhere. Some merchants have been denounced 



ORIOINALITT. I75 

as knowing nothing about their business, by their com- 
petitors, and have died rich, because they knew how to 
advertise. 

Industry is indispensable to originaHty. True, some 
eminent men are said never to stud}-, but their very excep- 
tion proves the rule. ' Like Richard Wagner in composing 
his music, they may He dormant for days, and even weeks; 
but when they have recuperated, and ail their powers are 
full, they bend to work with an energy others are not capa- 
ble of giving, and produce their astonishing results through 
the very appliances they are said to despise. There is 
a much greater .per cent, of common ability prominent than 
of extraordinary; for few men who are conscious of pos- 
sessing superior talents exercise them; and the loftiest 
talents may be carried through life, a burden rather than a 
blessing. There is as much individualism in application as 
there is in invention. 

Fortunately for the world, the men who possess the ability 
to achieve great works, possess also the genius of applica- 
tion. The man who holds the possibility of vast achievement 
within himself is never lacking in the industry to produce it. 
He may dissipate his forces, like Hobbes, over a score of 
leading objects, and execute none; but such a life only indi- 
cates the impracticability of its possessor. Nature has 
never fitted any man for sterling deeds, and then failed to 
provide him with the energy to attain them. It is very 
common talk that such a one " has talents, and he could do 
much if he would only apply himself." Yet we notice he 
does not apply himself. 

He is one of those unfortunates, brilliant on the surface, 
always arousing the expectations of his friends, but never 
filling them. He has no reserved power; if he had, you 



176 TUB GENIUS OF INDUHTliY. 

could no more keep him from action than 30U could keep 
a mountain spring dry by bailing it. The creative fountains 
of the soul would be forever pouring up incenti\es in that 
direction, until finally, in some wa}', he would go forth to 
accomplishment. Industr}-, like any other facult}', can be 
cultivated, and needs to be in ever}- man; but inborn indus- 
try is on a level with inborn ability to achieve. John 
Ruskin forcibly sets forth this principle. He 5333: 

" The greatness or smallness of a man is, in the most 
conclusive sense, determined for him at his birth, as strictl}- 
as it is determined for a fruit whether it is to be a currant 
or an apricot. Education, favorable circumstances, resolu- 
tion, and industry can do much ; in a certain sense they do 
everything; that is to say, they determine whether the poor 
apricot shall fall in the form of a green bead, blighted by an 
east wind, shall be trodden under foot, or whether it shall 
expand into tender pride, and sweet brightness of golden 
velvet. But, apricot out of currant, great man out of small, 
did never yet art or effort make, and, in a general waj', men 
have their excellence nearly fixed tor them when the}' are 
born; a little cramped and frost-bitten on one side, a little 
sun-burned and fortune-spotted on the other, they reach, 
between good and evil chances, such size and taste as gen- 
erally belong to the men of their caliber, and the small 
in their serviceable bunches, the great in their golden isola- 
tion." 

After all, that much-abused thing, common sense, is a 
potency in the struggle of life. Possessing it, no man e\-er 
fell on evil days. Possessing it, he never sighs because he 
wasn't born a half century earlier in the world's history, or 
blames fortune because he wasn't born a half century later 
for a lucky time; but he believes that the good time of 



ORIGINALITT. 177 

the world is now, and in the country where he Ywcs. 
I le is prepared to make the best out of the circumstances by 
which he is surrounded. 

The most distinguished trait in such statesmen as Callioun 
and Webster, and such tinanciers as Vanderbilt and Roths- 
child was common scitsc. It is the prevailing feature in 
Beecher and Spurgeon, and is the element that has made the 
writings of Greeley and Holland acceptable to all classes. 
Don't pine away because you are not an eccentric genius, 
for, if you have common sense, you possess something 
infinitely more valuable. 

The world is full of books showing the Micawbers how 
they may reach greatness. They tell us that what man has 
done, any man can do again. One has but to will it, and 
the thing is done. 

They tell how 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time." 

If one loves birds, they race him through the woods after 
Audubon; if nature, they send him roving through the for- 
ests of South America with Humboldt ; if he is ambitious, 
the}' shake the blood\' mantle of Caesar in his face, or daz- 
zle his eyes with the diadem of Constantine; or if poetry, 
thev tell him how Pope labored his couplets, and love-mad 
Tasso wrote during the midnight hours; and if the aim is 
to get money, they tell of the ragged boy who picked up a 
pin on the bank steps. The poor victim, thus enamored 
and inflamed, '' lies down to pleasant dreams " of pelf and 
power, rises to his undertaking, and, as Jean Paul puts it. 



178 TUE OENICii OF INDUSTRY. 

" lies down to his dreams again, because he has lost nothing 
but sleep." 

No amount of encouragement and assertion can reach a 
sublime achievement. Plodding labor will never do it. 
Nothing short of a nature fitly furnished for it can attain it. 
You had as well tell a child he could pull a railroad train as 
to tell the ordinar}' man he could do the work of a Hum- 
boldt. If he will undergo the sacrifices of Audubon, and 
possesses his perseverance and temperament, he may accom- 
plish what he did; but no number ot' " I wills " can do the 
work. When a man can stay in the saddle eighteen hours 
out of twenty-four, and retain his intellectual \igor unim- 
paired, he then may attempt to measure strides with 
Napoleon. If he hold Tasso's " spirit " and passion in his 
breast, he may undertake the sublime cantos. If there is a 
river in his kingdom flowing with gold, then may he aflect 
the lavish expenditure of Croesus. But to point the youth 
of the land to the height of these lonel}- impossibles, and 
assure them they can wear the same crown if they but 
desire it, when they are not governed by the same incen- 
tives, circumstances, or mental prowess, is the sheerest folly. 
Contempt of all preferment is not a trait of the American 
youth. The bo}- does not exist at sixteen }ears of age, but 
" visions of glor}- dance o\-er his mind." Ambition burns as 
unceasingly in his breast as the sacred fire on Vesta's altar. 
Every one has the thousands he will make ahead}' num- 
bered, or the position he will attain to definitely marked out. 
These men do not realize that increasing this ambition, with- 
out giving the ability to satisfy it, is filling the states with a 
restless and dissatisfied legion of men who feel that the 
world does not appreciate them. 

All positions in life are alike useful and honorable. Differ- 



ORIGIN ALITY. 179 

ent vocations require a different quality of intellect rather 
than a difference in quantity. It is not the work that makes 
the dishonor; it is the man that goes into the work. Respect 
3'our work and yourself, and others will respect you and 
your work. The most despised calling is brought into 
respect by the integrity of its professors. A stone-cutter 
may be the companion of philosophers; a blacksmith a uni- 
versal linguist ; a coal-miner the flower of the drawing-room. 
Give no regard to the occupation — 

' The rank is but the guinea stamp ; 
The man's the gowd for a' that.' 

No man knows what his powers are until he has been put 
on trial. You may be made for great things or small, but 
you will never know until you have a fair test. Men of 
great talents are always the last ones to find it out; they 
say, with Hazlitt, that " it's nothing but hard work." Don't 
worry yourself over Peter the Great or Christopher Colum- 
bus, but put in your mightiest elTorts on the work you have 
to do. Sir Joshua Reynolds says: "If a man has great 
talents, industry will improve them; if he has but moderate, 
industry will supply their deficiency." The more limited 
your powers, the greater need of culti\"ating your " original- 
ity." Your achicN-ements may not equal those of others, 
but, being original, they will be striking and attractive, and 
save you from failure. 

What if you do not sit on the "throne.'' " A man may 
be a grand lawyer, and never rank with Choate or Evarts; 
he may sway millions with his pen, and fall far short of 
Ruskin or Everett in elegance and force; he may be a 
princely merchant, and not have half the trade of Claflin or 
ShilHtto. 

Finally, don't be content to wear the clothes of some one 



180 



THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 



else. Don't receive any man as an example, except for 
inspirational power. Don't depend on your genius. Don't 
live in the old ruts. Don't build air-castles. Fix your eye 
on destiny's star, and 

" To your own self be true." 







"The government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall 
not perish from the face of the earth." 





HOMAS LINCOLN lived in a wretched log cabin 
in Kentucky. Education he had none; he could 
never either read or write. He was a generous, 
warm hearted, good-natured man, with but little efficienc}'. 
Learning there was a cloud on the title of his forty-acre 
farm, he traded the place for ten barrels of whisk}^ and 
twenty dollars cash. A fiat boat with the whisky capsized, 
and the proceeds of the farm floated down the Ohio river. 
Thomas then loaded his remaining goods into a three-horse 
wagon and moved to Indiana, where land at that time 
was not worth a cloud on the title, and liquid merchandise 
was free from peril of water. Mrs. Lincoln was a woman 
of unusual attainments for that locality; a pure woman, 
gentle, loving, created to adorn a palace, doomed to a life 
of toil and poverty in a hovel. In the new, cheerless and 
comfortless home, with the nearest neighbor five miles 
away, and no one save a ten year old son within hailing 
distance of her refined and delicate nature, she sank and 
died beneath the burdens she could not bear. 

After the}' had buried her in the grove near the house, 
Abraham, her son, now ten years old, wrote Parson Elkin 



184 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTllY. 

to come and preach her funeral. The good man, out of 
regard for the quality of the dead that lay over there in 
strange soil, rode a hundred miles through the forest to 
wait on that last rite. The settlers had caught an under- 
standing of the character of the new neighbor, and two 
hundred of them, from a region of twenty miles around, 
assembled at the service. There stood the log cabin alone 
in its solitude; the wide-spread prairie stretching its undula- 
tions beyond the vision like the waves of a shoreless sea; 
the grove; the grave; the group seated around upon logs 
and stumps; the venerable man of God; the mourning 
famil}-; and the boy Abraham, with his marked figure and 
strangely old face, his e}'es swimming with tears, gazing 
upon the scenes that paid the last tribute of earth to his 
mother, and whose soul was the only one in all the wide 
world that had ever touched his with a throb of love and 
understanding. 

The boy turned from that grave disconsolate. Like the 
Roman, his heart was " in the coffin there." He had formed 
acquaintance with his first great sorrow; it had come early 
and settled upon the bloom of his young years; it tinged 
his features with an air of care; shadowed his life with a 
melanchol}' unto the end, and pervaded his casket, when, 
amidst the tears of the nation and the mourning of the 
world, they laid him to rest in that splendid sarcophagus at 
Springfield. Men are not always masters of their fate, but 
if they do not wrest a real victory out of an adverse for- 
tune, the fault is more in themselves than in their stars. The 
calamities and struggles that fall on a young life serve to 
deepen and strengthen the central core of the character, if 
there is real worth there. Their real helplessness under the 
strokes of outrageous fortune becomes a helpfulness— their 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 185 

powers defeated, and driven back into themsehes, lend 
tlieir sinews to the one strong principle of the nature; just 
as when the eye loses its sight its energies go over to the 
ear and the capacity for hearing is powerfully increased in 
strength and delicacy. When a man complains of some 
misfortune, or povert}', or lack of opportunity for education 
that weighted his earlier life, and hence kept him from 
achieving what he appears destined for, the chances are, 
that when his energies went back to his rallying proint, they 
found there was not enough ground to build on for a life 
fight. 

Few 3"ouths have ever had the lines of fate drawn on 
them from every angle of trial so completely as young 
Lincoln. The poverty of the family was so wretched that 
they could not afford a purchased bed in which to sleep; the 
rudeness of that bed was an index of their kind of life — the 
head and one side of the bedstead were formed by an angle 
of the cabin itself. The bed-post standing out into the 
room was a single crotch, cut from the forest ; laid upon the 
crotch were two hickory sticks, whose other extremities 
were morticed into the logs, the two sides of the cabin and 
the two rails embracing a quadrilateral space of the required 
dimensions. This was bridged by slats rived from the 
forest logs, and on the slats was laid a sack filled with dried 
leaves. This was the bed of the father and mother, and 
into it, when the skins hung at the cabin doorway did not 
keep out the cold, Abraham crept for the warmth which 
his still ruder couch upon the ground denied him. 

As the energies of his life were put forth they were being 
beaten back from every direction; when they fell back to 
the rallying point they found enough ground to build on for 
a life fight; it was not the kind of ground that was found 



186 THE GENIUS OP INDL'STRY. 

in Robert Bruce when misfortune visited him, neither was 
it the kind that showed itseU' when Horace Greeley, shoe- 
less and coatless, first walked into New York city. The 
central ground of Lincoln's character was a moral integrity, 
the practical moral side of ever}^ problem in life was all 
that ever presented itself to him, he had a genuine integrity 
of human nature that wept at the sight of a beggar, and 
yet a heart that would not break under any fate. When a 
man's life becomes embodied in such a principle, when he 
becomes the personified principle, it makes him a peculiar 
man. There are not man}' like him. A great man}' men 
possess this element, but not in so marked a degree that it 
becomes their controlling characteristic. When a man's 
being is centered at this point he is in a fair way to go to 
his grave unhonored and unsung. It is not a brilliant qual 
ity nor a very telling one on the world. Every community 
has one or more such characters ; they are a standing menace 
to wrong doers, and a check on the fast elements of society. 
They are a mighty, silent force; their qualities are worthy 
of emulation and their influence is always respectable. 
They know they are of some worth and so do their fellows, 
and yet it is the most difficult element with which one can 
lift himself above the rank it gives him of a substantial 
citizen. Such men can not drive down any avenue of life 
and make themselves very great or \er}' powerful. It is 
only in certain epochs that they have a calling which becomes 
illustrious. When that epoch moves upon a people or a 
cause, this character must take the helm or the lustre of 
destiny is lost. 

We. find an illustrious example of this characteristic in 
the life of Mr. John Hampden, the renowned leader of the 
Long Parliament, the first of those great English common- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 187 

ers whose plain addition of Mister has to our ears a more 
majestic sound than the proudest of the feudal titles. He 
was one of those lonely instances of great men, who 
neither seek nor shun greatness, who found glor}' only 
because glory lay in the plain path of duty. Young 
Lincoln gave preinonitions of none but the Hampden 
qualities. He was industrious, strong-minded, clear headed, 
always recognized as older than his years ; beyond this he 
was never known as a bright, promising youth. Young 
Pitt delivered an entertaining oration when ten years old ; 
Lincoln wrote a letter asking a minister to preach his 
mother's funeral. Murillo touched his brush on the canvas 
with the hand of a master at the age of ten 3'ears; Lincoln 
had never touched the work of any kind of a master beyond 
his mother's Bible. At the age of ten Hannibal had sworn 
eternal enmity to Rome, was studying tactics and training 
with Hamlicar in the battalions; Lincoln was trimming the 
tops of the trees in the clearing. 

We search through his entire history as a child and youth, 
and come back without finding a single gem that the 
world's popular judgment pronounces indicative of the man 
whose fame was to fill all lands. The child is father of the 
man in most instances. We must confess some notable ex- 
ceptions, as in the case of Palissy and also of Charles XII 
of Sweden. But the established view may be received with 
much more certainty than would appear at the first sug- 
gestion. Orators, musicians, poets, artists, machinists have 
their predilections along a path so separate from the mass 
of men, that if their powers are unusual and phenomenal, 
they are at once recognized, and all acquaintances begin to 
prophes}' their future, and the training of all the developing 
years is turned upon this natural endowment, but the abili- 



188 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

ties that moA'e on the plane of integrity and principle are so 
surrounded b}' a multitude of such lights, that no one is dis- 
cernable from another, they form a milky way in their part 
of the spheres. The truly useful and good men of the world 
move in this milky way; a great crisis and the stern call of 
duty is needed to bring them to view. 

George Washington was made of this splendid material, 
from which the world's idols are carved, but taxation with- 
out representation and the heel of the t3"rant on a million 
citizens, was necessar}- to give him to the Colonies, and all 
the possibilities that were in him. Phenomenal men are 
more creatures of curiosity and occasions for wonderment 
than they are of building any great values into the public 
good. Men who control legislative assemblies, who write 
the laws of the nation, who shape the course of wise enter- 
prises, who restrain the excesses of a nation in its da}' of 
triumph, are alwa}s prudent, self-poised, deliberate men. 
Their quality is trul}' phenomenal, but lacking the bravery 
and dash usually ascribed to genius, we reckon them as not 
phenomenal, but the qualities are those out of which are 
constructed the world's most successful men. Failing in 
those prophetic elements which make one restless for great 
achievements, they are content to devote their energies to 
whatever duty falls to their lot; hence they are always re- 
warded with uncommon results in their, undertakings. They 
never know the nipping frosts of an over-leaping ambition. 
If called to a great action, falling in a line of dut}', they dis- 
charge it, unmindful of its heroism, with the conscientious 
conviction of duty, and thus unconsciously pass to achieve- 
ment and renown. 

When moral integrit}' is the center of the character, and 
every other quality revolves around and is subordinate to it. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 189 

a life opening with adverse fate, and its whole career in- 
volved in a struggle, is more perfectly developed for action 
than if unused to trials and pampered by luxury. The un- 
folding of Lincoln's early years was in the severest penury. 
He did not know what it was to have a child's wants sup- 
plied; he was a stranger to the gratification of a boy's 
whims where expense was implied. A delicate and pensive 
nature, instinct with soul refinement, gazed into the face of 
a father, whose highest scholastic attainment was to rudely 
form the letters that composed his own name, without know- 
ing the value of one of them. The only being he had ever 
met whose fingers could touch and sweep across the thous- 
and strings of this harp in the wilderness had been chilled 
into death b}- the same kind of fate that was now icing over 
his life. The future that opened before him stretched along 
without any sunlight or promise of morning. Had Homer 
been surrounded b}' wealth, and Greece been free of ene- 
mies, the songs would never have been written that in ages 
to come will be the only voice left to point the glories of 
that people. Could Milton have seen the light of day, his 
paradise would have been with statesmen and his wars with 
politicians; shut up in darkness by a great misfortune, his 
deeper nature was opened up and filled the world with im- 
mortal verse. 

Abraham at an early day became a reader. With scant 
school advantages and no companionships that could interest 
him, he found in books his friends and instructors. The 
majority of the settlers around him were entirely illiterate, 
and when it became known that Mr. Lincoln's boy could 
not only read, but could write also, his services were in fre- 
quent demand by them in sending letters to the friends back 
in the States. The training he failed to receive at school in 



190 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

this direction was here fortunately suppHed b}' the needs of 
this primitive comniunit}\ School compositions are too 
often the result of great labor, and are usually made of a 
number of sentences borrowed from various books and 
strung together with the valuable assistance of conjunctions, 
used in an original way. Unless there is a large nati\e gift 
at writing the school exercises are but a feeble source of 
cultivation. There is more early development in friendly 
letter-writing than in any forced training. The 3-oung 
amanuensis took the awkward sentences of his rustic dictat- 
ors, and as the lioness licks her cubs into shape, so he 
framed plain and straight-forward statements, the meaning 
of which no one could misunderstand. Taught in this 
school of nature, unhampered by artificial surroundings, his 
whole after life of speech and pen was characterized by a 
direct, distinct, homely method of statement which was not 
crude, for it was clear; not burdened, for it was natural, and 
which was at once the admiration and the teacher of the 
learned and the illiterate. 

There is much dissipation in reading in these days. With 
from one to three daily papers in each house, and as many 
weeklies, and as man}- magazines, the mind has a surfeit of 
literature and soon establishes a habit of reading every arti- 
cle and book in that same hap-hazard way that it glances 
over the morning news while waiting for breakfast. With 
too great an abundance of reading matter the tendency is 
strong to hast}' perusal, and a careless reader soon becomes 
a loose thmker. Harriet Martineau was very near to 
wholesome advice when she told a young lady to " check 
this reading gluttony; we must first master ourselves, and 
select one book, determining not to read another that 
year, and not read over three pages a' day in it." If six 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 191 

books written by students who ha\e forged the observations 
and experiments of a Hfe-time into a few clear and practical 
principles, be slowly read and well digested, they will be of 
more real value than a whole Bodleian library devoured 
after the customary fashion. 

The youth of Lincoln was fortunately shut out from 
omniverous reading. The Bible was his first book. So 
profound an impression did this first reading make upon his 
mind that he was e\'er after able to repeat many of its 
pages, while his speeches frequently abounded in its apt 
illustrations. He then read ^Esop's fables. Their quaint 
simplicity and striking justice were so favorably adapted to 
him that he was soon able to repeat all of them. He then 
came into possession of Pilgrim's Progress, and Weems' Life 
of Washington, and shortly before her death his mother 
purchased for him a life of Henry Clay. These books 
gave meat to his hungry mind. The Bible, ^Esop and Bun- 
yan — the richest library could not have furnished him three 
better books. The po\'erty of his books was the wealth of 
his life. Cfesar and Gustavus Adolphus would have grown 
lean on such feeding, but Garibaldi and. Washington would 
have grown truthful men and earnest patriots from it. These 
books did much to form a character, which for its simplicit}', 
its earnestness and purity, stands illustrious with the historic 
personages of the world. In the life of Washington he 
found a lofty example of patriotism, and learned how much 
of personal toil and sacrifice was woven into American his- 
tory. 

The life of Henry Clay came to him as a living voice. 
He was then in the zenith of all his splendid powers and 
wonderful influence. He was the idol of American hearts 
as few men can ever hope to be. He swaj'cd his audiences 



192 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY 

by a majesty of eloquence unapproachable in its influence 
over the masses, and supported, as by a mighty buttress, 
with a life so fervent and noble in its patriotism that it 
would have been written great even in the absence of 
achievement. Clay had risen to political and professional 
eminence from circumstances almost as humble as his own. 
This undoubtedly did much to excite his taste for politics. 
He was very young when he read the life of Washington, 
and we catch a glimpse of his precocit}' in the thoughts 
which it excited, as revealed by himself in a speech made to 
the New Jersey Senate. Alluding to his earl}- reading of 
this book, he says: ''I remember all the accounts there 
given of the battle fields and struggles for the liberties of 
the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination 
so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton. * * I recol- 
lect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must 
have been something more than common that those men 
struggled for." Two years later Ramsey's Life of Washing- 
ton was borrowed from his teacher, Andrew Crawford. A 
circumstance connected therewith illustrates a characteristic 
trait of honesty. The borrowed book was left in an open 
window. A shower coming on it was wet and nearly 
ruined. Abraham carried it to Mr. Crawford in great grief 
and alarm, and offered to pay for it in labor. Mr. Crawford 
let the lad " pull fodder " three days to pa}' for the book, 
which thus became one of his own literary treasures. 

Somewhat more than a year after the death of Mrs. Lin- 
coln, Abraham passed into the care of a step-mother. She 
brought with her from her Kentucky home three children, 
the fruit of her previous marriage. The two families grew 
up in harmony together. The new mother always proved 
a tender and helping friend to Abraham. He cherished her 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 193 

with the fondness of a son, and the first fi\'e hundred dollars 
he received as a legal fee he presented to her. Their 
attachment continued unbroken until his death. She saw 
her young charge rise to be her own ruler, and the ruler of 
the nation, and to fall amid expressions of grief from the 
whole civilized world. 

Young Lincoln grew up an increasing helpfulness to his 
father on the farm. We find him at the age of eighteen an 
awkward, over-grown, country lad. He had spent but a 
few months at school; he knew no language but his own, 
and did not know a noun from a qualifj'ing adjective, but 
he was pushing along the up-hill road of self-education with 
the courage of a hero. That which was much more the 
real essence of his self-education, was the never-ceasing 
course of laborious thought and reasoning that he kept up 
upon the meaning, the connection, the tendency, the right 
and wrong, the helps or remedies, of all the past facts he 
read of, or of the present facts he experienced in life. This 
education he began early, pursued etfectivel}', and never 
ceased it. He only studied for practical knowledge and 
practical wisdom. He would have been restless under col- 
lege tutelage, and never would have graduated in the " regu- 
lar course." Greek and Latin for mere scholarship, and the 
whole hve years curriculum for the improving and training 
of the mind, he would have impatiently swept aside as a use- 
less fabric. Every thing he knew was practical, and he 
studied a book or thing, only that he might make use of it. 
His practice was to write out an analysis of every book he 
read, and then rehearse portions of it in a conversational 
wa}', to the members of the family or some companion he 
might chance to interest in this direction. His store-house 
of information was not very large at this age, but he could 



194 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

successfully, by word of mouth, have transferred the entire 
invoice to a philosopher, and have dotted it with observa- 
tions and criticisms, so original and valuable as to have 
charmed the autocrat of the breakfast table. A " hired 
man " who had sat at the log fires and heard him talk, said 
''he was the likeliest boy in God's world.'' 

Young men reach an epoch in their lives, generally at 
about the age of eighteen, when they grow restive of the 
restraints that bind them at home, and long for an oppor- 
tunity to take their craft out into the great waters and try 
a sail for themselves. It was under this impulse Vander- 
bilt began to row passengers across the Hudson, and he 
kept on obe}'ing its promptings, and success kept with him, 
until he pontooned the oceans with his steamers and latticed 
the continent with his railroads. If a }oung man has 
promptings in a given direction he ought to be permitted to 
tr\' them, and if they work to a satisfactory issue, he should 
pursue their leading. The men who in early life follow their 
bo3-ish predilections, beginning in the crude and informal 
stages of some business, and step into its larger transac- 
tions as the}' gather experience and ability, grow from a row 
boat to a commodore with Vanderbilt, from the captain of 
a school-boy squad to the leader of an empire's armies with 
Wellington. Lincoln was growing restless of his secluded 
country life; echoes from the busy world were beginning to 
come to his hearing, and he longed to mingle in a life of 
greater dignity and significance than was possible in his 
primitive community. He could at least reach the world 
h\ helping his father to a better market for his farm pro- 
ducts. He accordingly built a boat, with his own hands, to 
carry the farm produce to some trading post down the river. 

One morning standing by his boat at the landing, two 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 195 

men came down to the shore and wished to be taken out to 
a steamer in the river. The young boatman sculled them 
out with their baggage, and each of them presented him 
\vith a sil\"er half-dollar. Mr. Lincoln frequently referred 
to this incident, for it was the tirst money he had ever 
earned, and the first dollar he had claimed as his own. He 
said, "I could scarcely believe my e3'es; it was a most 
important incident in ni}- life; I had earned a dollar; the 
world seemed wider and fairer before me; I was more hope- 
ful and confident from that time." 

The next year he made his second venture in navigation 
and caught a fuller glimpse of the great world. Such had 
come to be his reputation for capacit}' and integrity, that a 
trading neighbor applied to him to take charge of a flat- 
boat and float its cargo to New Orleans, a distance of eigh- 
teen hundred miles. Such a venture to him at that time 
would be much akin to asking a Brooklj-n ferryman to sail 
a Cunarder to Liverpool. Life is not all made up of training 
and experience. Much of it, to the men who win, is a ven- 
ture. It is that instantaneous quality, when a place is 
opened, that knows its own possibilities, and vaults to the 
seat, and taking up the lines over an untried team, drives 
straight up to the " station." If Nelson could not have been 
ready to set sail at three o'clock the same day he was called 
upon to take command of the fleet, he never could have won 
England's \-ictory and established her supremac}^ on the seas. 
Tlie 3'oung backwoodsman, who had reached the remark- 
able height of six feet and four inches, swung loose from the 
shore upon his clums}' craft, and with a boundless delight, 
drifted to the current, conscious that he could float the cargo 
and transact the business of his employer. 

There had been no eventful circumstances to disting-uish 



196 THE OENIUS OF INDUSTUT. 

Abraham's life up to this time. No surrounding intiucnce 
had retarded or developed his charaeter. He was as free 
as nature. He had followed the bent of his own will abso- 
lutely untrammeled. He had ploughed corn in the summer, 
and cut cord-wood and split rails in the winter. He was 
filled with the knowledge of seven books that he had read 
over and o\-er, and was free of^ the dissipating influences 
that so uniformly mar the development of young men. 
With a constitution as firm and tiexiblc as whip-cord, and a 
nature as clean as Joan of Arc, when she left the hillside and, 
joining the head of the armj^, hurled its wavering squares 
against the enemies of France, he was prepared to go forth 
and begin a contest with destin}'. 

He was twenty-one A^ears of age; what chance had he.'*' 
Good native abilit}' and integrit}' of character must be 
pushed, if they attain recognition, even under the most 
favorable surroundings. AVith only these, and no fiash of 
genius to adorn them, a life on the river and in the forest 
opened up to his unfolding manhood no primrose path. At 
this age Calhoun was burning oil at midnight in a renowned 
college, Webster was an accepted orator, and Charles James 
Fox had aroused the attention of the nation by his eloquence 
in Parliament. Twenty-one is the formative age of life. It is 
at that period one feels himself a man for the first time, and 
all the world recognizes him as such. He is now launched 
onto the sea of self dependence; if a right start is made it 
augurs favorably; if a wrong start is made, it niay require 
an entire life time to retrieve it. The bent the character 
may assume or the form the business habits may take 
at this period of ripening are liable to give direction to all 
the after years. 

Too high an estimate cannot easily be placed upon educa- 




ay/Td-l^'^^'^^ 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 197 

tion to train the mind and drill it into lasting and useful 
habits; but too low an estimate cannot be placed upon 
educators choosing for their pupils their life calling. A 
student's aptitude in mathematics is no indication he will 
make a successful merchant; his celerit}' in composition is 
not evidence he will make a respectable editor. Educators 
are the brain builders and mind trainers of our land; but 
their very occupation of dealing with text books and teach- 
ing b}- the tread-mill of accepted authorities precludes them 
from that practical judgment necessary to put a raw racer 
on the great track. The general uprising of desire for a 
certain calling, that has been cropping out all along the 
experience, will, in most instances, have so far formed a 
purpose b}' this time that there will be little excuse lor the 
runner to miss his direction. 

Abraham knew that something must be done. He had 
come to that age when it was required he should choose his 
vocation and give himself to it. When the turning point of 
life comes it is necessary to settle on and act along some 
definite course, else the concentrating forces of the man 
begin to waver, no edge comes to the actions, he drifts aim- 
lessly, and unless righted early, flounders and goes down in 
a smooth sea, when a chart and a pilot could have carried 
him safely. But there was a duty here to father and famil}-, 
that must be yielded to for a day. Once more Thomas 
Lincoln loaded his goods in wagons and sought a new home. 
This time on the Sangamon River, near Decatur, Illinois. 
Again a home was hewed from the forest. Most of the 
planks " rived " for this house were the workmanship of 
Abraham, for his dexterous hand could cleave that oak 
timber better than the father who was now advancing 
in years. He then split the rails and fenced in a lot of ten 



198 THE GENIUS C)F INDUSTRT. 

acres. After breaking up the piece of enclosed prairie, and 
planting it with- corn, he announced to his father that he had 
"hired out " and would now "do for himself." 

There was an immediate necessity for clothing and a 
present li\elihood, which absolutel}' debarred him from an}- 
undertaking of a larger range. He must do what his hands 
found to do. He made a bargain with Mrs. Nancy Miller 
to split four hundred rails for every }'ard of brown jeans, 
dyed with white walnut bark, that would be necessary 
to make him a pair of trowsers. Reports vary as to the 
number, but it is established that INIrs. Miller got several 
hundred rails made for that jeans. 

It was about this time that a trusty young man was 
wanted by Denton OfTutt to take a flat-boat to New Orleans. 
Abraham was selected, and made his second trip down the 
Mississippi. The vo3"age and business were so successfully 
conducted that his emplo3'er decided to place him in charge 
of his store and 'mill at New Salem. Preferment, that 
comes because of faithfulness to dut}', is as natural an 
advancement as the growth of a tree year by year. There 
are few men but are conscious of the value to them of those 
in their emplo3'ment. Men who handle men, like command- 
ing generals, soon learn the worth of those under them. 
The man who controls his business successfulh- possesses an 
intuitive faculty of selecting his assistants. McClellan 
failed at the head of the Union army because he did not 
know men, although he was an able ofBcer; Grant suc- 
ceeded, though weak in many of McClellan's strong points, 
because he never failed in putting the right man in the right 
place. The very necessities of a large business interest 
demand trusty and competent men to carry out its details. 
These proprietors will keep and advance valuable assistants, 



ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 199 

because the business can not aflbrd to lose that much integ- 
rity and capacity. The employed are often discontented 
witli their slow advancement, and break loose from their 
present position to try something that promises better. The 
experience of this class is that the new venture does not 
prove satisfactory, and the day comes when they see that 
refusing to let well enough alone marked the start of a 
downward move they have never been able to retrieve. 

The testimony of the largest number of our business men 
who have attained unusual results is, that their advancement 
was tryingly slow, but never coming to the time when they 
were willing to exchange a bird in the hand for two in the 
bush ; they held on and worked, and at the end of a quarter 
of a century they could see that they had grown to a place 
and affluence that compensated for the toil and harrassment 
of all those 3'ears. INIany of these men are occupying lucra- 
tive places in the great houses of the cities. They have so 
woven themselves into the various branches of the manage- 
ment, that they have become a part of its warp and woof. 
They have become really partners in the direction and con- 
trol of its affairs, and the proprietors finally, although it 
may be tardily, recognize what they have put into the 
capital stock, and render them a just per cent, of the profits. 
To wait gracefully requires great business tact, but it sel- 
dom fails to bring a valuable return. 

Whatever may have been lacking in the qualities of 
Abraham Lincoln, honesty was always one of his virtues. 
His views ma}' have often been puritanical, but he was 
consistent with himself and severely just. On the same 
principle that Mr. Clay would rather be right than be Pres- 
ident, Mr. Lincoln sought to do right, without thought of 
the reputation it won him, or regard for a misunderstanding 



200 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

of himself. He never perpetrated a conscious injustice on 
any man, nor slumbered over night without rectifying a 
mistake he may have committed. The amount involved 
did not influence him, it was that a wrong was being 
endured from his hand. On one occasion, in the store, after 
the day's sales, he found he had charged a lady six and a 
quarter cents too much. He closed the store and walked 
two miles to her house and returned her the overcharge. 
This conscientious exactness of dealing characterized his 
whole life. 

Mixed with this stern justice was a large share of the 
rugged frontier element. A neighborhood bully created a 
disturbance in the store one day in the presence of some 
ladies. Lincoln, after failing to quiet him, remarked that 
when the ladies were gone he would attend to his case; 
this was what the fellow wanted, for he had long held a 
grudge against the young merchant. When the ladies left 
the store, Lincoln said : " Well, if you must be whipped, I 
suppose I may as well whip you as any other man." Out 
of doors they went; one brawn>' blow brought the bully 
down, and, holding him down with his knees and one hand, 
Lincoln pulled some "smart weed" from the patch into 
which he had knocked him, and rubbed it into the face and 
eyes of his victim, until he cried "nuff." Lincoln got up 
without a particle of anger, washed the crushed fighter's 
face and eyes, gave him a bit of good advice, and e\er 
after found him a fast friend. 

The year in Offutt's store not only ser^•ed to de\elop 
some of the rough and ready qualities of the young fron- 
tiersman, but being now in a communit}' where books were 
more plentiful, the many idle hours, that are a part of the 
life of all countr}- stores, were occupied in valuable reading. 



ABliAUAil LIS COLS. 201 

Debating clubs were much in vogue around Salem, and they 
proved a source of great culti\'ation to him. He would 
sometimes walk six miles to a club, but there is no record 
that he ever distinguished himself in debate, be3-ond the 
fact that the "boys liked to hear him talk." Thus he grew, 
some respected his brains, and some admired the man, and 
everybody trusted him. It was here he became "Honest 
Abe;" he was authority, jury and judge in all disputes; he 
was umpire from Bible debates to horse races; he was the 
most unassuming and gentlest, the kindest and roughest 
young fellow in all New Salem and the region round about. 

The Black Hawk war occurred in 1832. Mr. Oftutt 
having failed in business, Abraham, being out of emplo}- 
ment, was among the tirst to volunteer in the company that 
was being raised in his count}^ the "Clary's Grove Boys," 
a band of bolstering rowdies, who claimed to be the 
"Regulators" of that section of the country and who did 
almost anything short of highway robbery, had conceived a 
great admiration for "Honest Abe," and through their 
eftbrts Mr. Lincoln was elected captain of the company. 
This war was not remarkable for making militar}- reputa- 
tions, as it had no noteworthy battles. The soldiers returned 
to Sangamon county just ten days before the election, and 
on his military popularity they forced their captain into the 
field as a candidate for the Legislature. He was allied with 
the Henry Clay interest and was accordingly defeated. 

On returning from the war, Mr. Lincoln found a debt of 
fonr hundred dollars and its accumulated interest, which 
Berry should have paid, resting upon him. The purchase 
of the store by Berry and Lincoln, of W. G. Green, as 
related in Green's biography, proved an unfortunate venture 
for the latter. Berry was a worthless scamp, and soon con- 



202 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

verted the proceeds of the store to his own use and left his 
partner to care for the debts. The larger debt, which was 
due Green, run for several years, but every dollar of it was 
finall}- paid by Mr. Lincoln. He was greatl}' burdened by 
that note; he. declared it was a nightmare that rode him 
•nigh to death during the nights, and a spirit that haunted 
him through the day. He always referred to it as the 
"national debt." He felt it was a crime to be in debt. The 
incubus that settled down over his opening manhood added 
one more to the struggles that had thus far been his closest 
companions. 

Some men swim in debt, and appear to deem the bath a 
luxury. Goldsmith fairly reveled in debt. He was dunned 
for his milk score, arrested for rent, threatened by lawj-ers, 
but he never recognized a creditor as having any rights he 
was bound to respect. In the same month in which his 
'' Vicar of Wakefield " was published, his bill of fifteen 
guineas, drawn on Newberry, was returned dishonored. 
When he was figuring at BoswelPs dinner in " the ratteen 
suit lined with satin, and bloom-colored silk breeches," the 
clothes belonged to his tailor, and remained unpaid for till 
his death. Poor Burns, with all his loose ways, was the 
soul of honor. He was driven almost distracted by a debt 
of seven pounds, for which he was dunned during his illness, 
and wrote a most imploring letter to his publisher to advance 
him the amount "for God's sake," and when he got well 
again he would furnish him with seven pounds worth of the 
'' neatest song genius " he had ever seen. He died shortly 
after, and his last poem was in payment of this loan. Chat- 
terton, more sensitive still, reduced to a state of starvation 
and despair, bv his debts, poisoned himself at the age of 
eighteen. With a debt that had grown to be five hundred dol- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 203 

lars, and no way to discharge it, except by working for thirty- 
seven cents a day, Lincoln felt it was a load great enough 
for a nation, and while it depressed, it did not produce a 
debtor's distraction nor debt recklessness, but tightened the 
reins of a well-trained economy and deepened the determi- 
nation to " work the harder and pay it ofi"." 

About this time Mr. Lincoln achieved his first political 
success — he was appointed post-master. The office was too 
insignificant for any one to want for its pay. Lincoln wanted 
it so he could get newspapers to read. He could not afford 
to be tied to the office in a house, so he made a post-office 
of his hat. Whenever he went out, he placed the letters in 
his hat. When an anxious looker found the post-master, 
he had found the office; and the public officer taking off 
his hat, looked over the mail wherever the public might 
find him. 

Biographies of great men, but especially of good men, 
are instructive as guides and incentives to others. Some of 
the best are almost equivalent to gospels. The examples 
they furnish of patient purpose and steadfast integrity, 
strongly illustrate what it is in the power of each to accom- 
plish for himself. Great men have belonged to no exclusive 
class in life. Apparently insuperable obstacles have, in 
many instances among the lowly, awakened their dormant 
faculties and evoked a stimulus that has carried them to ulti- 
mate renown. The instances of success, in the face of 
adverse fate, would seem almost to justify the conclusion 
that " with self-reliance and a half a chance one can do any- 
thing." Ney enlisted at eighteen in a hussar regiment; 
Kleber soon surnamed him " the indefatigable," and at 
twenty-five offered him the Adjutant-Generalcy ; without a 
moment's hesitancy Ney "skipped the ranks of promotion," 



204 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

and buckled on the sword of command. The}' said in Rus- 
sia that Suwarrow was little; he was under live feet in 
height, because from his boyhood he had been so constantly 
undertaking something new he had not had time to grow. 
Lincoln was not possessed ot' a restlessness that sought a 
new thing, but he always felt able to discharge any duty 
left to his care. When he was oftered a deput3--surveyor- 
ship for the vicinity of New Salem, he at once accepted the 
place, although he had no knowledge of surveying, and but 
the slenderest acquaintance with the science upon which it 
is based. He borrowed a cop}' of Flint and Gibson, and 
shut himself" in his room to master the theory; when his 
outfit for work came he was prepared for the field. The 
accuracy of his surve3-s has seldom been called in question. 
During these 3-ears an intimac}' had grown up between 
Mr. Lincoln and W. G. Green, which was cherished warmly 
by both. Green was possessed of keener perceptions than 
Lincoln, and of a deeper insight into human nature. Lin- 
coln took men at what they appeared to be. Green measured 
them as they reall}' were. Lincoln studied books and prin- 
ciples, Green circumstances and men. Lincoln was growing 
into a philosopher and statesman, Green into a sagacious, 
successful man of the world. Green gave Lincoln his first 
lessons in grammar; Lincoln in turn would quote to him 
more of Burns and Shakespeare than he had ever read. 
Lincoln would discourse to Green on morals, warn him on 
his growing tendency to gamble, and turn his thoughts to 
books ; Green would instruct Lincoln by his original sugges- 
tions on any subject, unveil to him the business side of the 
world, and show him how to make a successful trade. Two 
minds with opposite traits of character, but which are afiin- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ' 205 

ities in social intercourse, inay become a David and Jonathan 
to each other and each help the other to an empire. 

To be truly popular one must deserve it and win it, not 
play for it. The world sees through e3'es having a very 
powerful lens; it will dally with the man that flatters, and 
pay attention to the man that shifts his sails to every breeze, 
if doing so helps along a good cause, but in the long run it 
turns on such men with a crushing rebuke, and hands over 
its substantial favors to the men of merit and metal. Mr. 
Gladstone has achieved his exalted influence in English 
atlairs without the falsehoods, or pretense, or the arts of the 
demagogue. He has won his place and power by the 
strength of his plain, transparent character, and his disinter- 
ested patriotism. lie has aroused no jealousies, for he is 
not selfish. He has made no enemies, for he feels kindly 
towards every man. People are glad to see him rise, for it 
seems just that he should rise. 

The straight-forward and open-faced course of Mr. Lin- 
coln had brought to him the hearty admiration of that pio- 
neer settlement. All seemed glad to help him along. He 
had nothing only plent\- of friends. Johnson knew what it 
was to be without friends until he had conquered the world. 
But Johnson was so great he could conquer all odds. Coler- 
idge, on the other hand, would ha\ e sunk and died if Southe}' 
had not sheltered his famih' and given his wandering years 
a home. Lincoln found friends whose generous words gave 
his pensive nature a courage it probably could not otherwise 
have had. 

A man full of expedients needs no other kind of riches. 
With a store-house of practical expedients, the battles of 
lite are alread}' half fought. Sheridan, with a genius that 
could dash off a play in a single night, was disarmed and 



206 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

rendered helpless by the slightest difficulties. Defoe pos- 
sessed all the expedients for getting into difficulties known 
to the most unfortunate men, and not a single resource to 
keep himself out. With all his talent, and a genius to work 
second onl}' to Walter Scott, he went lamely through life 
and died miserably. Along 'the current of one's existence 
every little distance circumstances are forming an eddy, and 
there are currents and counter currents crossing his way, 
and he becomes involved in spite of himself. One can not 
escape these epochs of complications. When they do come 
the genius of extraction is as Blucher to Wellington at 
Waterloo. 

Lincoln was a man of practical expedients. He always 
found some way to get out of difficulties. The most dis- 
heartening complications might bank up around him: whether 
the}' were moral or mechanical, he was equally ingenious in 
escaping each variety. Green says the first time that he 
" ever saw Lincoln, he was in the Sangamon river, with his 
trowsers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to pilot a 
fiat-boat over a milldam. The boat was so full of water it 
was hard to manage; Lincoln got the prow over, and then 
instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole 
through the projecting part and let it run out." His had 
been a life of expedients. He had always to master emer- 
gencies and make the best out of bad conditions. There is 
a vast difference between a man of expedients and a man of 
cunning. Lincoln was ingenious; wonderfully so; but he 
was not cunning. Lord Beaconsfield was cunning, wonder- 
. fully cunning. Cunning is, or tries to be, far sighted; inge- 
nuity disposes of occasions. Cunning contrives plots; inge- 
nuity dissolves them. Cunning sets traps; ingenuity evades 
them. Cunning envelopes its \'ictims in difficulties; ingenu- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 207 

it}' helps them out of them. Cunning is the offspring of 
selfishness; ingenuity is the child of practical wisdom. He 
took his boat safely over a great many milldams during his 
life, but alwa3's by an expedient. 

In 1834 Mr. Lincoln became again a candidate for the 
Legislature, and was elected. Major Stewart, an attorney 
at Springfield, conceived a high opinion of the embr^'o 
statesman, and offered to lend him whatever books he 
needed. After the canvass was over, he walked to Spring- 
field, a distance of sixteen miles, borrowed a load of books 
of Stewart and took them home with him to New Salem. 
He now, for the first time, found himself settled upon a life 
calling, and began the study of law. He studied, while his 
money lasted to pay for his board, and then would go on a 
surveying tour and earn a further suppl}' to help him through 
another period of study. He would sit day after da}', for 
weeks, under an oak tree on a hillside, and read, moving 
around to keep in the shade as the sun mo\ed. He became 
so much absorbed, people thought him craz}'. He would 
frequently pass his most intimate friends and not recognize 
them, an astounding thing to do in a border communitv. 
The matter with him was, a vast revolution was going on 
in his life. Hitherto he had been reading for information 
and love of it, but now he had settled to an aim, and his 
energies were being whetted to the wire edge of a definite 
purpose. Such a concentration of aim he had not known 
before. It threw all his habits out of their rut, and started 
them on a new path. He had found the pursuit of his life, 
and was following its track in earnest. 

A university course is of great advantage, but if the 
student lack the genius of perseverence, the course can not 
make him profound in his chosen profession. The man who 



208 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

has a will, can accomplish more with borrowed books, orb 
the hillside, than will ever be achieved by the collegiates 
who trust to the professors and the chosen curriculum. The 
metal out of which a life is wrought is in the man rather 
than in the cramming process of any teaching machines. 
John Le3'den was a shepherd boy in a wild valley. Like 
Hogg, who taught himself to write by copying the letters 
of a printed book, as he la}' watching his flocks on the hill- 
side; like Carins, who from tending sheep, raised himself by 
dint of application, to a professor's chair; like Murry and 
Furgason, Leyden was inspired by a thirst for knowledge. 
As a boy he walked eight miles daily across the moors to 
learn reading; and this was all the education he ever 
received ; the rest he acquired for himself He found his 
way to a bookseller's shop, and would sit and read all day, 
unmindful of the meal of bread and water at his miserable 
lodgings. He only asked to be admitted to books and lec- 
tures. Thus he toiled and battled at the gates of learning, 
until his unconquerable perseverance carried all before it. 
At the age of nineteen he astounded the Edinburg profess- 
ors by his profound knowledge of Greek and Latin, being 
able to pass a senior examination. 

When the time for the assembling of the Legislature 
approached, Lincoln dropped his law books, shouldered his 
pack, and, on foot, trudged one hundred miles to Vandalia, 
the capital of the State, and made his entrance into public 
life. As a member, he was extremely modest and retiring, 
in his seat always and serving his duty faithfully. He 
watched legislation as Erskine did the lawyers manage their 
cases, but he seldom took a part in discussion. When the 
session closed he walked home, and resumed his studies and 
surveying. 



ABRAHA3/ LINCOLN. 209 

In 1S36 he was a candidate for re-election to the Legisla- 
ture. The canvass was an unusuall}- exciting one. The 
new Whig party was then forming. Prestige and power 
was with the old established part}'. In the breaking of the 
old lines politicians were supposed to be non-committal, and 
kept their sails trimmed for which e\'er breeze should sweep 
the country. ]Mr. Lincoln knew nothing but principle, and 
could not have been a political triminer if he had desired 
such a calling. Earh' in the canvass he wrote a letter 
to the Sangamon yournal, beginning as follows : " In }-our 
paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the sig- 
nature of ' INIany Voters,' in which the candidates who are 
announced in the yotirnal are called upon to ' show their 
hands.' Agreed. Here's mine." He then proceeded in 
his characteristic way to "show his hand," which was that 
of the Whig party, in a very decided way. 

It was not until this canvass that he becaine aroused on 
political questions, and bent to the attainment of the new 
idea all his latent energies. He had been making political 
speeches and working in politics for four years, but in this 
contest he made his first development as a debater, and 
gave hopes of building an endpring reputation. The oppos- 
ing candidates met at Springfield, according to their custom, 
to discuss the issues involved in the campaign. N. W. 
Edwards, then a Whig, led off, and was followed b}' Dr. 
Early, a sharp debater and a representative Democrat. 
Early bore down heavily upon Edwards; so much so that 
the latter wanted an immediate rejoinder, but Lincoln 
demanded his turn, and took the platform. He began 
slowly and with evident embarrassment, but he laid out his 
propositions clearly, and it was apparent he understood his 
own positions. He soon won the attention of his auditors, 



210 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

and elicited their surprise as he began to build around his 
adversary a wall of fact, and then weave over him a net- 
work of deductions so logically tight in all its meshes, that 
there was no escape for the doughty doctor. He forgot 
himself as he warmed to his work. His audience grew 
enthusiastic, and applauded his telling hits, and rolled in 
laughter as with ridicule and wit he riddled his helpless 
opponent. Aroused, a complete transformation was wrought 
in his appearance; the homely man became inajestic, the 
plain, good natured face was full of expression, the long bent 
figure was straight as an arrow, and the kind and dreamy 
e3'es flashed with the fire of inspiration. The audience 
stood before him like a vast ^Eolian harp, and he swept 
their chords with a master's hand. It was music fit for the 
Gods. The man who had split rails, guided a flat-boat, and 
done whatever he could find to do for an honest li\ing was 
an orator. 

The Illinois Legislature of 1836 was conspicuous for hav- 
ing an unusual number of men who became famous in after 
years. The delegation from Sangamon County was 
remarkable especially for its physical altitude; of the two 
Senators and seven members of the House, not one of them 
was under si.x: feet in height. They were consequently 
known as the " lon'g nine." Mr. Lincoln was the tallest of 
the number. He was now twenty-seven years of age. 
Stephen A. Douglas was also a member, being twenty-three 
years old, and the youngest member. Douglas was small 
of stature and very slender. Mr. Lincoln subsequently said 
he was at that time " the least man he ever saw." These 
3'oung men began their intellectual and political sparring 
during this session. It was a struggle^which foreshadowed, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 211 

and even laid the basis of an epocli in the national histor}', 
and in the history of progress throughout the world. 

■ Both men were launched into the political world at a time 
when \ast problems of government were beginning to agi- 
tate the public mind. It was at Vandalia, at this time, both 
marked out the course in which they were to walk, one to 
baffled ambitions and a grave of unsatisfied hopes, the other 
to a realization of his highest dreams of achievement; both 
to exalted statesmanship and crowns of memory. 

Here was the beginning of Mr. Lincoln's connection with 
anti-slavery history. The prevailing sentiment of Illinois 
was in favor of slaveholders in the exercise of their legal 
dnd constitutional rights. There were several hundred 
slaves held in the State at that time, not by power of law, 
but by the strength of public sentiment. The Democrats 
and Whigs were strong in their statements that the Consti- 
tution protected slavery. The agitation of the slavery 
question was beginning to create alarm among the politi- 
cians. A resolution was introduced into the Legislature, of 
strong pro-slavery utterances, and fixing the odium of Abo- 
litionism upon all who did not favor it. But two men in 
the House dared to record their vote against it; those men 
were Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Stone. These wrote a 
protest against the resolution, and had it recorded on the 
journal. Their protest was limited to the statement that 
slavery was a moral and political evil, over which Congress 
had power upon the national territory. This was the 
beginning of Mr. Lincoln's anti-slavery record. It was 
moderate, yet he never became more extreme in his views. 
He never believed that Congress had power under the 
Constitution to interfere with slavery in the different States. 
He always believed slavery was founded in injustice and 



212 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

bad policy. He never changed his belief regarding the 
power of Congress over slavery in the Territories. This 
protest was the platform on which he stood and fought out 
the great anti-slavery battle, whose trophies were four 
million freedmen. 

Mr. Lincoln could never have been a Garibaldi in Italy, 
nor a Kossuth in Hungary. His large and reverent regard 
for the law forbade him from being a revolutionist. Men of 
the sober and moral temperament are never the leaders of 
revolutions. Their discussion of subjects may arouse 
thought, but never pro\'okes agitation. William Lloyd 
Garrison went down to Baltimore to help Lundy publish his 
anti-slavery paper, " but," as he observes, " I wasn't much 
help to him. for he had been all for gradual emancipation. 
I became convinced that immediate abolition was the doc- 
trine to preach, and I scattered his subscribers like pigeons." 

Men of the Garrison type of mind have been the leaders 
in all the great revolutions of the world. These contend- 
ing and revolutionary spirits are of one mould. They have 
been the restless agitators who have marked each era of 
government existence with their peculiar doctrines of refor- 
mation. They are as a general thing ambitious and designing 
men, who seize upon slight or fancied ills and magnify them 
to wonderful proportions, sowing distrust among the citizens, 
and unsettling the whole affairs of State. Bold in their 
movements and extreme in their utterances, they soon 
become renowned as leaders, and begin to play the role of 
patriots and mart}-rs. A patriot may strike boldly to disen- 
thral a State, a demagogue keeps it in the throes of pei-petual 
disturbance. Robespierre and Danton were agitators. 
Controlled by the motives of a wrong-headed ambition, 
they sought more to be the creators of a new order of things 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 213 

than to relieve France from the heel of an obnoxious mon- 
archy. Garibaldi and Patrick Henry were revolutionists. 
They sought to overthrow the existing tyranny, that the 
generous principles of home rule might be granted their 
people. 

Revolutionists never take note of the time when they 
strike for their results, nor of the means to be used for the 
end. The}' are inspii-ed by a boundless conviction that a 
reform is demanded; they are ready to sacrifice every tra- 
dition and override every fundamental law that stays the 
triumphant victory of their banners. New principles are 
thus incorporated into the government at the peril of the 
national existence itself. It is said that the small pox leaves 
the system perfectly pure, but at times the purifying process 
is more than the patient can stand, and he dies. The revo- 
lutionist will endanger the entire government rather than 
endure one ill, yet to these heroic physicians of the national 
patient do governments owe their golden eras of progress. 
They are men of profound conviction and relentless pur- 
pose; self-willed, self-reliant and decisive, the}' combine all 
the sterner qualities, and possessing the moral element of 
patriotism, are the creators of great epochs among men. 
As a class they are not controlled by circumstances, but 
control circumstances. 

William Lloyd Garrison was a revolutionist. Law had 
no sacredness and government no rights if they conflicted 
with his views. Animated by a great principle they are 
not turbulent; what they say and do appears fanatical, but 
in them there is no such spirit. They move from the 
supremest convictions of duty, and their utterances are, to 
them, mere statements of unvarnished truth. Garrison was 
peculiarly bland and urbane. He had a singular steadiness 



214 TUE OENirS OF INDUSTRY. 

of manner. His hand-writiny; showed the finished com- 
pleteness of the writing- master. In the '' copy " of the 
most vehement denunciations that appeared in the " Liber- 
ator,''' not a letter was ever misplaced, or a comma or 
exclamation point omitted. When old age had crept upon 
him, he met with a vast assemblage in Boston to rejoice 
over the close of the war. His thirty years of war had 
closed also. His serene face, with its benevolent calmness, 
looked upon this audience with the same unmoved serenity, 
that twcnt}' years before bowed politely to a Boston mob, 
as he descended from the rostrum in Faneuil Hall, and was 
dragged by a rope ignominiously through the streets. 

Abraham Lincoln did not belong to the school of great 
leaders represented by O'Connell, Kossuth, Garrison and 
Giddings. He possessed none of the rugged and aggressive 
spirit that characterized those men. Marked b}' a devotion 
to the right as strong as theirs, he was more conservative, 
and knew a more reverent regard for the established law 
than they. He could not be a revolutionist, for his patriot- 
ism was equal to his love of right. Slavery was the one 
question to which his attention was given as a public dis- 
putant, yet he " never ceased to believe that Congress had 
no power under the Constitution to interfere with slavery in 
the different States." He was usually spoken, of in his 
earlier political life as a safe man, but too conservative to 
be a leader. It was the same conser^"atism that dis- 
tinguished Washington and Adams and Clay. When his 
hand finall}* signed the emancipation proclamation, the free- 
dom it gave was what he had always believed to be right; 
but that freedom came as the result of the war, and the 
proclamation as the dire resort of a military necessity. 

In 1837, after the close of his second term in the Legis- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 215 

lature, Mr. Lincoln accepted the ofter of a law partnership 
with Major Stuart, and took up his residence at Springfield. 
He had been instrumental in removing the State capital 
from Vandalia to Springfield. This gave him a favorable 
introduction to her people. In 183S he was again elected to 
the Legislature, and oh its assembling was recognized as the 
foremost man on the Whig side of the House. He was 
accordingly put forward as the candidate for speaker of the 
House; the contest was close, for the new party was gaining 
rapidly in Illinois, but Col. Ewing was elected by one' ma- 
jority. The defeat placed ^Slr. Lincoln on the floor of the 
House, a place which gave him opportunity for his powers 
as a debater. He took a prominent part in the discus- 
sions of the session. He had learned in the two previous 
terms that one of the most successful ways of getting rid of 
a troublesome opponent was by telling a story. A story, 
well told and which is apt to the case in hand, with its point 
directed at an opponent, is one of the most powerful weapons 
a disputant can use." No batteries are so deadly in a dis- 
pute as those that, by illustrating the falsity of the opposing 
position, raises a laugh. There are men that can stand up 
all day under the fire of logic and eloquence, but one 
fusilade of laughter upsets their nerves and leaves them 
floundering. 

The shafts of ridicule which John Randolph, of Roanoke, ■ 
hurled at his enemies, making their exclamation points with 
his long, bony finger, did more to disconcert the opposition 
than all the flights of his splendid rhetoric. When attack- 
ing Henry Cla}', he gave a glowing eulogy on Mr. Clay's 
brilliant abilities, and proceeded to exhibit what he termed 
"Clay's Corruption." He had piled his charges mountain- 
high; stopping short in the terrific pace of his eloquent 



216 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

denunciation, he looked over his audience with a quizzical 
air and quietly said, " Clay shines and stinks like a rotten 
mackerel by moonlight." The eftect was electric; no broad- 
side of the opposition ever so completely downed the great 
Kentuckian. 

The strength of anecdote and ridicule, when aptly put, 
lies much in the fact that no reply can be made to it. The 
victim is helpless, vmless he can retort in the same kind and 
with an improvement. The gift in the first place is so rare 
a quality, that one need never fear to use it; generally there 
is but one quiver in an assembly filled with that kind of 
arrows. 

Lincoln's tactics of meeting an eneiny with an anecdote 
answered his purposes so well, that he soon turned the expe- 
dient in many directions. He was not greater than man}' 
other men in this particular, but seeing its value, he practiced 
its uses until he became wonderfully adept in stor}^ argu- 
ment. If a man broached a subject which he did not wish 
to discuss, he told a story which changed the direction of 
the conversation — if he was called upon to answer a question, 
he answered it by telling a stor}'. He had a story for every- 
thing. Something had occurred at some place where he 
used to live, that illustrated every possible phase of every 
possible subject with which he might have connection. His 
faculty of finding a story to match every event to which he 
bore any relation, was marvelous. As our anatomists find 
one bone, and by their acquaintance with the necessities of 
natural formations construct about it the form of the animal 
of which that bone was a part, so he would take the slight- 
est occurrence, and by some law of association weave it into 
a harmonized form, so "pat" that it was accepted as true, 



ABBAHAM LINCOLN. •211 

and so adroitly handled, that they moved in his speeches 
with all the power of logic. 

The gift of illuminating a subject by some form of illusti-a- 
tion has been possessed by every one of the M^orld's great 
orators, because it is a style of speaking that sheds light ; it 
commends itself to the cultivated and ignorant alike; born 
orators use it, for it is the natural light nature flashes on her 
dark subjects. Demosthenes abounded in illustrations, and 
so did Cicero; so, also, has every Indian orator; Pitt and 
Patrick Henry made pictures walk in splendid processions 
before their hearers. " Him, who taught in Galilee," spoke 
in a series of illustrations; "the common people heard him 
gladly," and the agents of the Sanhedrim returned to their 
master and said: "Never man spake like this man." 
IVIeasured by the ornate standard of Irving, or the majestic 
sentences of Webster, Lincoln would seem to lack the quali- 
ties of a successful speaker; but natural men are their own 
standards; the world has no rules b}' which they can be 
measured. The only real measure of eloquence is" do the 
people understand the speaker, and are they convinced by 
him.^ If they are, he has the orator's power and is superior 
to criticism. 

Mr. Lincoln's first case in court was not marked by 
"Erskine's and Ellenborough's brilliant strides to fame in a 
da)'. Whatever he won was through the processes of mid- 
night toil on the side of right. Men belie^■ed him honest, 
and hence he had great influence with the juries. He was 
always weak when on the wrong side. He never accepted 
employment in a case where the client's recital showed him 
in the wrong; and even when in the right, he counseled a 
compromise if there was any question about making it clearly 
evident. Sometimes he was deceived, and as soon as con- 



218 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

vinced of this on the trial, he lost all his enthusiasm and 
courage. His moral integrity had a genuine interest in the 
establishment of justice. But he was forbidden those mas- 
terly manceuvers in doubtful cases which win the majority 
of prominent attornej^s their reputation and fees. 

Judge Story had a peculiar regard lor a lawyer's duty to 
a client. Once enlisted in a case, he lelt it his duty to win 
for his client, right or wrong. Rufus Choate looked upon 
the practice of law as a business; and as a carpenter will 
build a house for a good man or a bad one, feeling that the 
matter of morals does not enter into the building, so Choate 
took a client's case and won it for him, without ever recog- 
nizing that the virtues or vices in it atiected him; there 
might be some rotten testimony, but he built it in, as the 
carpenter would a rotten board, because the proprietor 
insisted upon furnishing it. Choate's consuming thought 
was to get a verdict. " Get the jur}' with you," he said, 
" move heaven and earth to carry the jury, and take your 
chances in the Supreme Court." Lincoln belonged to a puri- 
tanical class that never could lose sight of justice. The 
litigant's money was poorly invested that over-reached him 
and retained him on the bad side ; " he was perversely hon- 
est." His partner said while yet poor he was engaged upon 
an important case, and discovered he was on the wrong side. 
He informed his associate he would not make the plea to 
the jury ; the associate made it, and won the case ; perfectly 
convinced his client was wrong he refused to receive one 
dollar of the fee of nine hundred dollars. 

In that early day there was not sufficient practice for any 
one firm of lawyers at Springfield to be kept busy. It was 
the custom for those of reputation to ride the circuit with 
the judge. Mr. Lincoln early decided to visit the county 



ABM Air AM LINCOLN. 219 

seats in his judicial district during each term of court. His 
genial homespun manners and his readiness to make a speech 
on any subject of public interest, soon attracted public atten- 
tion and won him hosts of friends. It is doubtful whether 
the profession ever regarded him as a well read lawyer, for 
he lacked those early advantages of legal training which 
conduced so much toward making Marshall a Chief Justice, 
and Hale a Lord Chief Justice. By his own powers of gen- 
eralization and deduction he became versed in the principles of 
the law, and in a few years came to be recognized by the 
best lawyers as their peer. He supplied the lack of a 
thorough knowledge of the fundamental treatises by studying 
his cases with great thoroughness; he became so uniformly 
successful in them that the people regarded him as having 
no equal. Within ten years after his location at Springfield 
he was found on one side or the other of every case in the 
circuit. 

]\Ir. Lincoln won his cases at bar chiefly through the con- 
fidence the juries had in his honesty and his peculiar methods 
of advocating a case. In presenting a case to a jury he pre- 
sented both sides. This was done in a manner at once lucid 
and fair; after his statement, little was left to be done in 
this direction by the opposing counsel. Usuall}' on the 
right side, he could afford to give the opposition everything 
they could consistently claim, and still have enough material 
left for his verdict. His fairness was not apparent, but real. 
In addressing a jury he would yield point after point that 
any other lawyer would have disputed, until his clients 
would tremble in apprehension that the case was given away; 
then he would state his own side with such power and clear- 
ness that that which had appeared strong against him was 
reduced to weakness; that which had seemed sound was 



220 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

proved to be specious, and that which had the appearance 
of being conclusive against him was plainly seen to be cor- 
roborative of his position. The result was, every juror felt 
Mr. Lincoln to be an absolute aid to him in solving the 
difficulties and arriving at an impartial A'erdict. The lav/- 
3'ers all testified that he was a hard man to meet. 

During the earlier years of his law practice Mr. Lincoln 
had to contend with the extremest poverty, contending with 
its perplexities and hardships. He had great temptations to 
make a temporary use of any money that might be in his 
hands. It was a temptation which Marlborough was unable 
to resist, and around the history of Lamartine and Talleyrand, 
in such cases the mantle of charity must be thrown. Mor- 
ton passed through an eventful career, with millions at his 
command in various ways, and was always straightened by 
his meager salary, but died in poverty without a dollar ever 
having stuck to his hands. Years after Mr. Lincoln was 
established in the practice of law, the agent of the Postal 
Department called at his office to settle and collect the balance 
due the department, which had been standing since his 
retirement from the New Salem office. Mr. Lincoln 
appeared perplexed. An observing friend who chanced 
to be in the room, suggested, " If you are in want of money 
let us help you." lie made no reply, but pulled from under 
a pile of books a little old trunk, and asked the agent how 
much the debt was. The sum was named, Lincoln opened 
the trunk, pulled out a package of money, wrapped in a rag, 
and counted out the exact sum of $17.30. This balance due 
the Government had been thus stored during all these 
3'ears. 

Large sympathies are an unconscious element of power 
with many men. A nature that is pained with every injury 



ABBAUAM LINCOLN. 221 

inflicted will be found instinctively doing many generous 
things. Men sometimes affect this ^•irtue, but like any other 
artifice it is always detected on sight. The world often 
seems to be harsh in its treatment of men; however, the 
long run seldom fails to prove its judgment correct. The 
aggregated human judgment is like a vast sensitive plant; it 
detects the slightest unnatural touch. A man of real sym- 
pathies need never publish them to the world. They are 
made to vibrate so often in this tempestuous life that those 
about you will not fail to catch the air. When General 
Marion sat in his tent and wept because the soldiers had to 
make a forced march over the frozen ground, almost bare- 
footed, the old veterans knew it as by instinct. 

A genuine sympath}', like the waters from a fountain, 
flows on forever. It is gi\x'n as freely to an insignificant 
subject as to some great cause. ^Ir. Lincoln never knevi- 
the diflerence in the want of a caged bird to be free and 
four million slaves crying for libert}'. They were to him 
alike the voice of want unanswered, and this left a pain, in 
his breast. A petty incident will serve to illustrate his good 
heart. On journeying to a county court he passed a 
slough, and saw a pig swamped in the mire, and helpless to 
free itself. He looked at the pig and then at the new suit 
of clothes, just donned that morning. To help that pig, 
much as he wanted to, was too great a peril for that new 
suit, so he decided against the pig and rode on. But the 
vision of the little sufferer stood before his eyes and would 
not down. At last, after riding two miles, he could endure 
it no longer, and turned and rode hurriedly back, " deter- 
mined to help that pig even if it cost all the shine on the 
new clothes." He carried rails and built a passage into the 
mire. He then walked out on this to where he reached the 



222 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

pig; between its flounders and the holes in the floor of his 
bridge lie slipped into the mire himself, B}' the time land 
was reached deliverer and victim presented very much the 
same appearance. Mr. Lincoln cleaned his clothes with a 
stick, and proceeded on his way. Afterwards in examining 
his motives for going back to the release, he first thought it 
was benevolence, but he finally come to the conclusion that 
it was selfishness; that he had gone to the pig's relief to 
^'take a pain out of his own mind." 

In 1840 Mr. Lincoln was again elected to the Legislature. 
He was again the candidate of the Whigs for Speaker, and 
again defeated. Being the representative member from 
Sangamon County, and alread}' exercising an influence in 
the State councils of the party, he came to be called the 
" Sangamon Chief" There was no special act of his in 
these legislative sessions that served to bring him prom- 
inently before the people; his growth had been the gradual 
development of a conscientious legislator. At the close of 
this session he refused a further nomination; evidently a 
larger political life was dawning upon him. 

In 1842, having arrived at his thirty-third year, Mr. Lin- 
coln married Miss Mary Todd, a lady to whom he had been 
engaged for a time, but the marriage had not been consum- 
mated earlier on account of his limited ability to provide for 
a home. The young couple took rooms at the Globe 
Tavern, because the widow Beck kept it, and because 
they could stay there for eight dollars a week. Mr. Lin- 
coln's life, touched with melancholy, needed a home where 
lo^■e and comfort might be found. This could be found in 
no home but his own. Pitt tore up a tender love by the 
roots lest it should interfere with his political ambition. 
Gcethe was foi-ever involved in a love aflair, but was ras- 



ABRAHAM: LINCOLN. 223 

cally heartless. Mr. Lewis eloquently defends him, on the 
plea that " genius has an orbit of its own and sometimes 
necessarily disregards domestic duties." But even Goethe 
was captured by a bright-e3'ed girl who presented him a 
petition, married her, and for twenty-eight years looked 
back upon the sixty previous years as a loss. Socrates, 
with his Xantippe, Richard Hooker rocking the cradle, and 
John Wesley having his whiskers pulled, are not encourag- 
ing pictures of the influence of domestic life, unless the 
quaint suggestion of Isaac Walton be accepted, that '' afflic- 
tion is a divine diet." 

Mr. Lincoln regarded his home as a sacred spot; his 
regret was that it should be so humble. Scant as it may 
have been for several years in the luxuries of life, the real 
elements of a hearthstone were never absent. Strongly do- 
mestic in his nature, he found in his home a quiet and rest 
that he had never known in the world, for as he said: " Up to 
this time I have always lived out of doors." Settled for 
life, thoughts of Congress began to influence him. In 1S43 
he wrote to his friend Speed : " We had a meeting of the 
Whigs of the county here on last Monday, to appoint dele- 
gates to the Congressional convention, and Baker beat me 
and got all the delegates instructed to go for him. The 
meeting, in spite of my attempt to decline it, appointed me 
one of the delegates, so that in getting Baker the nomina- 
tion, I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made 
groomsman to the man who has ' cut him out ' and is mar- 
rying his own dear gal." 

Mr. Lincoln was always loyal to his party and supported 
the nominee. He had a love of freedom and progress, but 
he never moved faster than he could take his part}' with 
him. Believed to etfect anything, one must work through 



224 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

organizations of men, and to this end the whole party must 
be carried together in a reform. He was careful to go no 
faster and no farther than he could take his party with him. 
His policy was to advance surely, even if he was obliged to 
proceed slowly. 

In 1844 Henry Clay, Mr. Lincoln's political idol, was the 
candidate of the Whig party for the Presidency. Mr. Lin- 
coln, as an elector, canvassed Illinois. The defeat of Mr. 
Clay was a cruel disappointment. to his friends. He had the 
power of exciting an enthusiastic affection for his person that 
few politicians have enjoyed; like Schuyler Colfax, the 
women of the country were always interested in his suc- 
cess. Mr. Lincoln was one of the chief mourners, for the 
defeat rendered Mr. Clay a political impossibility in the 
future. But the candidate for elector had won laurels dur- 
ing the canvass; at its close he was recognized as one of the 
most powerful political speakers in the State of Illinois. Mr. 
Lincoln decided to make a visit to the man he recognized as 
the genius of American statesmanship, and selected the 
occasion when Mr. Clay was to deliver a speech at Lexing- 
ton, favoring gradual emancipation, as the auspicious time. 
He heard the speech and was sorely disappointed. The 
speech was written and read; it was not eloquent, and 
lacked that spontaniety and fire for which the author was 
so famous. 

Mr. Lincoln secured an introduction, and the great Ken- 
tuckian invited his admirer to Ashland. Mr. Lincoln 
accepted with delight, but the interview was no more satis- 
factory than the oration. It was not strange, for two men 
more unlike were never brought together. One was a 
proud inan, the other was a huinble man; one was princely 
in his bearing, the other was lowly; one was distant and dig- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 225 

nified, the other was as simple and teachable as a child ; one 
received the deference of men as his due; the other received 
it with a sense of his unworthiness. 

On his return to Springfield, Mr. Lincoln could not dis- 
guise his disappointment. He felt that while Mr. Clay was 
a polished and superior man, his nature was imperious, 
and that his kindly bearing was a magnificent and patroniz- 
ing condescension that made his guest very uncomfortable. 
Li 1846 Mr. Lincoln was nominated for Congress. He 
went into the field, making a speech every day after the 
campaign opened, and was elected by an unprecedented ma- 
jority in that district. He took his seat in Congress, a new 
member, but not a novice in politics or legislation. He had 
mastered all the great questions that agitated the public 
mind. His speeches had not been harangues, but the}' had 
been great schools of information for the people. Like 
Adolph Thiers, who would never speak until he had pre- 
pared all his data from official sources, and whose statements 
politicians early learned never to call into question, so Mr. 
Lincoln had been no mere declaimer; his reasonings were 
along the lines of his convictions and based on admitted 
facts. He stood in Congress, the only Whig member from 
Illinois, attracting the eye of the gazers by his extreme 
height, and consideration by his profound earnestness and 
masterly knowledge of every subject he discussed. Mr. 
Douglas took his seat during this session as Senator 
from Illinois. The " tallest and the shortest members of 
the Illinois Legislature," had now become the tallest and the 
shortest members of the National Legislature, but the 
lesser had outstripped the greater, for Mr. Douglas, a more 
brilliant orator and an able political manipulator, had climbed 



226 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

far above the " Sangamon Chief," and was now in the 
Senate. 

The Mexican war was now engaging pubHc attention. 
The people were seriously divided about the justice of the 
war. Mr. Lincoln, from his seat, voted that the war " was 
unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President 
of the United States." His speech on the occasion was a 
severe arraignment of the Administration, and produced a 
marked impression on Congress. The speech was remark- 
able as a literary production. It had none of the finish and 
polish with which Adams would have adorned it; it was 
not studded with poniards wreathed in bouquets as Charles 
Sumner would have embellished it, but it was a direct state- 
ment of facts and principles, clothed in pure English, telling 
an honest story, which, like " Grey's elegy," }ou could not 
transpose a sentence or change a word but you would 
mar its perfection and power. 

Mr. Polk, by his war with Mexico, had been engaged, 
much against his inclination, in manufacturing available 
candidates for his own place. The National Whig Con- 
vention nominated General Taylor for President. Mr. Lin- 
coln canvassed in New England, and later in the campaign, 
stumped his own State. He was not a candidate for 
renomination to Congress. He received certain support in 
the former convention on the pledge that he would ask lor 
but one term; he was faithful to his agreement. The record 
he had made demanded a return. But his word in politics 
was to him as sacred as his word in business, and he retired 
to private life. 

The gaunt and awkward figure of Abraham Lincoln was 
to him a source of great embarrassment, and in a large 
measure assisted people in forming their estimate of his 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 227 

abilities. In Congress he felt himself, on occasions, the 
observed of all observers, and his sensitive nature shrank 
from the rude gaze that was reading him a ''rail-splitter." 
The great burly form of Dr. Johnson, that attracted so 
much curious attention, caused him greater grief than all the 
poverty with which he had to contend. The club feet of 
Thad. Stephens gave him many a cry at school, and many 
pangs in later life, but it required more than misshapen feet 
to check that fiery spirit, whose word in the nation for so 
long was law, and whose suggestion was the shadow of a 
statute to come. Pope possessed a frail tenement of ninety 
pounds, done up in cotton and bandages. He ne\er knew 
any physical strength, and spent his time, b}' spells, in 
bewailing his misfortune, and coining verses that have 
delighted the nations. Men of the splendid presence of 
Roscoe Conkling and General Hancock have a valuable 
amount of public esteem thereby granted them, which the 
ungainly figure of a Lincoln and a Talleyrand are onl}' able 
to equal by feats of intellectual prowess. 

Mr. Li^icoln's practice, never very large, was entirel}' 
ruined when he returned from Congress. The work of 
earning a living once more stared him in the face. With a 
resolution worthy of Tenterden, he bent his energies again 
to this solemn duty. Webster had the faculty of securing 
large fees, even if he was unable to preserve his earnings. 
Charles O'Connor at a ripe age retired on a competence, 
earned at the bar, that would be sufficient for a prince's 
wants. These men possessed the business tact of a lawyer 
they charged their clients according to the value of the ser 
vice they rendered them. Clients with large interests imper 
lied are usually willing to pay largel}' for valuable services, 
But Mr, Lincoln had no estimate of the value of services 



228 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

He measured the fee by the ability of the client to pay. 
Like Senator Daniel Pratt, of Indiana, who gave ad\-ice to 
an agent of an eastern house on an important business 
transaction, as he was consulted at times for three days; 
the agent procured the name of a friend to a draft for one 
hundred and fifty dollars, with which to pa}' for the advice. 
With the money in his pocket he called on his attorney and 
asked his fee. " Oh," said the counselor, " I reckon about 
a dollar!" And yet Mr. Pratt died worth a hundred 
thousand dollars. 

Ambition is one of the qualities that lives so near the 
di^'iding line of man's virtues, that few men can give it a 
liberal exercise without going over the line and accepting 
the assistance of the baser elements. It requires a Spartan 
courage to hold ambition down to square dealing. While 
ISIr. Lincoln possessed a vaulting ambition, the center of his 
character was too deeply set in integrity of principle to ever 
betray it even under the most inconsiderable circumstances. 
Wellington's watchword, "duty," was Lincoln's severe and 
relentless master. The lawyers of Springfield, having polit- 
ical aspirations, refused on all occasions to take the defense 
of any one who had been assisting fugitive sla\es. It was 
an unpopular business. Such a client went to Edward D. 
Baker, and was refused frankly on the ground that as a 
political man he could not afford it. The man went to an 
ardent anti-slavery friend for advice. He at once named Mr. 
Lincoln, saying: "He is not afraid of an unpopular case. 
When I go for a lawyer to defend an arrested fugitive slave, 
other lawyers will refuse me, but Mr. Lincoln will always 
take the case." In a case conducted against a railroad 
company, judgment having been given in his favor, and the 
court being about to allow the amount claimed by him, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 229 

deducting a proved and allowed offset, he rose and stated 
that his opponents had not proved all that was justly due 
them in offset; and proceeded to state and allow a further 
sum against his client, which the court allowed in its judg- 
ment. His desire for the establishment of exact justice 
always overcame his own selfish love of victory, as well as 
his partialit}^ for his client's feelings and interests 

Returning to the practice, not knowing that there was 
any future political preferment for him, Mr. Lincoln now 
brought all his vast energies to the study of the law and 
became a learned jurist. His general reading had been 
broad, and with his clear head he understood the relations 
of things,, so that his deductions were seldom wrong, from 
any given state of facts. He applied the principles of law 
to the transactions of men with great clearness and pre- 
cision. Judge Breese said, " I have for a quarter of a cen- 
tury regarded Mr. Lincoln as the finest lawyer I ever knew, 
and of a professional bearing so high-toned and honorable as 
justl}-, and without derogating from the claims of others, 
entitling him to be presented to the profession as a model 
well worthy of the closest imitation." Judge Thomas Drum- 
mond, of Chicago, representing the bar of that city, said, " I 
have no hesitation in saying that he was one of the ablest 
lawyers I have ever known." In addition, he said, "No 
intelligent man who ever watched Mr. Lincoln through a 
hard contested case at the bar, questioned his great ability." 
Judge Drummond's picture of Mr. Lincoln at the bar, and 
his mode of speech and action is so graphic and so just that 
it deserves to be quoted : " With a voice by no means 
pleasant, and, indeed, when excited, in its shrill tones some- 
times almost disagreeable; without any of the personal 
graces of the orator; without much in the outward man 



230 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

indicating superiority of intellect; without great quickness 
of perception, still his mind was so vigorous, his comprehen- 
sion so exact and clear, and his judgment so sure, that he 
easily mastered the intricacies of his profession, and became 
one of the ablest reasoners and most impressive speakers at 
our bar. With a probity of character known to all, with an 
intuitive insight into the human heart, with a clearness of 
statement which- was itself an argument, with uncommon 
power and felicity of illustration, — often, it is true, of a plain 
and homel}' kind, — and with that sincerity and earnestness 
of manner which carried conviction, he was, perhaps, one of 
the most successful jury law}'ers we have ever had in the 
State. He alwa}s tried a case fairly and honestl}-. He 
never intentionally misrepresented the evidence of a witness 
or the argument of an opponent. He met both squarely, 
and, if he could not explain the one or answer the other, 
substantially admitted it. He never misstated the law 
according to his own intelligent view of it." 

In 1854, a new political era opened; events occurred of 
immeasurable influence to the countr}'. An agitation of the 
slavery question was begun, which was destined not to cease 
until slavery itself should be destroyed. Stephen A. Doug- 
las was the responsible author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
which was known as "popular sovereignty," which gave to 
the people of a Territory the right to choose their own insti- 
tutions. Mr. Lincoln was opposed to popular sovereignty 
as it was applied in this bill; between himself and Judge 
Douglas was destined to be fought the battle of the giants 
on this great political problem. Mr. Douglas foresaw the 
coming storm of changed sentiment on this subject, and 
with an energy and self confidence worthy of a great leader^ 
he threw himself into the arena of discussion and sought to 



I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 231 

avert the popular judgment. In canvassing the State, Doug- 
las visited Springfield, and before a vast audience assembled 
at the State Fair, entered into an exposition and defense of 
his policy with the bearing of a man who had already con- 
quered. 

On the day following jthe speech of Mr. Douglas, Mr. 
Lincoln replied to him. This speech was one of the most 
powerful and eloquent efforts of his life. He felt that the 
basic principle of human liberty was assailed. He could 
never consent to recognize as popular sovereignty that 
which refused sovereignty to one-half the people. He read 
the bill as a pretext to introduce slavery into the Territories. 
He recognized slavery in the slave States as a constitutional 
right, but with a religious fervor he opposed its extension 
into the Territories. He spoke for three hours and ten 
minutes. His whole heart was in his words. He quivered 
with emotion; the vast audience was as still as death. They 
felt that a man whom they had known for years, and yet 
who was unknown to them before, was just now revealing 
superhuman powers, and that with all the energy of aroused 
manhood he was determined to blast the iniquitous delusion 
of popular sovereignty. At the conclusion of the speech, 
every man felt that it was unanswerable — that no human 
power could overthrow it. Every auditor did homage to 
the man who took captive the heart, and broke like a sun 
over the understanding. 

The speech bristled with Mr. Lincoln's lucid, startling 
and simple statements. One short quotation is an illumi- 
nator of his entire address: " IMy distinguished friend says 
it is an insult to the emigrants to Kansas and Nebraska to 
suppose that they are not able to govern themselves. We 
must not slur over an argument of this kind because it hap- 



232 THE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

pens to tickle the ear. It must be met and answered. I 
admit that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is com- 
petent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern a7iy 
other person without that per so7i''s consents That touched 
the very marrow of the matter, and revealed the whole differ- 
ence between him and Douglas. 

In the ensuing session of the Legislature, Mr. Lincoln 
was the candidate of the Whigs for the United States Sen- 
ate. The Democrats who refused to support the Kansas- 
Nebraska policy had an independent candidate in L}-man 
Trumbull, while the regular Democrats supported Governor 
Matteson. Mr. Lincoln saw Matteson come within three 
votes of being elected, and demanded of his friends that 
they go for Trumbull. They yielded after his urgent 
entreaties, though strong men among them wept to see their 
idol thus sacrifice himself. It was a triumph of Mr. Lin- 
coln's magnanimity and devotion to principle. His self- 
sacrifice was not his death; it was the old story of " he that 
debaseth himself shall be exalted," for, upon the organiza- 
tion of the Republican party, all the " opposition parties " 
found themselves together, and Mr. Lincoln became their 
foremost man. 

The great problems that perplexed the political mind of 
the nation were constantly assuming new phases. Mr. 
Lincoln was not in full harmony with the old Whig idea, 
although he considered himself a Whig, and the party 
regarded him with distinguished favor. He loved the name, 
and the party associations were precious to him, but he saw 
there was little hope of resuscitating that dying organiza- 
tion. The extension of slaver}' had become the permanent 
question. On either side of Mason and Dixon's line the 
two great sections of national thought must meet and adjust 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 233 

their difference, or the Union was one of perpetual strife. 
Accordingl}' we find Mr. Lincoln in 1856 attending the 
Bloomington Convention. It was a gathering of all those 
who were opposed to the Democratic party. With Mr. 
Lincoln's powerful assistance the Republican party of Illi- 
nois was organized, a platform adopted, a State ticket 
nominated, and delegates appointed to the National Repub- 
lican Convention. 

Mr. Lincoln had developed along the line of what he 
conceived to be a great duty, until he had become one of 
the fathers of a national part}-. The avowed purpose of 
the new party was to resist the extension of slavery. The}^ 
proposed to shut • it up, where it existed by constitutional 
guarantee, and preserve it there as a vested right, but to 
grant it no new territory. Mr. Lincoln's speech to the 
Convention was one of distinguished power. Again and 
again during the progress of its delivery, the audience 
sprang to their feet, and upon the benches, and testified by 
long-continued shouts and waving of hats, how deeply the 
speaker had wrought upon their minds and hearts. It 
fused the mass of hitherto incongruous elements into per- 
fect homogenity, and caused them to move to their work in 
harmonious union. 

Mr. Lincoln was recognized b}' his part}' in Illinois as 
their first man. His fame had moved beyond the borders 
of his State, by reason of the new organization, and all the 
"Western States united in accepting him as their leader. 
Never had a man taken a leading part in. party management 
with less of self involved in the work. Disraeli never 
moved the lines of party tactics with half so much concern 
for England as he did for " Dizz}'." Even Gladstone, con- 
servative and just as he is, bent the lines of his Irish policy 



23-1: . THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

in order to gain votes enough to uphold liis ministry in Par- 
liament. Our Jackson, while a stranger to the kind of moral 
integrity that actuated Lincoln, never regarded faAor or 
votes, and at the peril of crushing his future and his party, 
held the helm of State determinedly to the way of his con- 
victions. America may be flooded with demagogues who 
disport themselves before every wave of chance opinion, 
but the inen who have guided the nation and moulded her 
marvelous destiny, have in nearly every instance been 
animated by the integrity of patriotism, and crowned with 
the courage of their convictions. 

There was a strong feeling in the West that Mr. Lincoln 
ought to be the candidate for the Vice-Presidency, and his 
name was accordingly presented to the convention. Mr 
Da3'ton received the nomination, but Mr. Lincoln was thus 
introduced to the nation. He entered the campaign for 
Fremont and Dayton with his accustomed zeal, and his State 
was revolutionized, though his candidates were defeated m 
the nation. From this time forward Mr. Lincoln was almost 
wholly given to political affairs. 

The Democratic State Convention of Illinois in 1858 
endorsed Mr. Douglas as their candidate before the Legisla- 
ture at the ensuing session for re-election to the United 
States Senate. Mr. Douglas had become the anti-Lecomp- 
ton leader. His influence and popularit}' were perhaps 
greater now than ever before. Prominent Republicans in 
the East felt that he was a man capable of too much good 
to the nation to be removed from the Senate at that juncture 
of public artairs. Moreover, they urged that he was trav- 
eling to the Republican party as rapidly as his surroundings 
would permit. Accordingly, when the Republican State 
Convention met a few weeks later there was a strong pres- 



ABRAHAM LINGOLIT. 235 

sure from the East to endorse Judge Douglas. The Illinois 
people felt that this was questionable policy, and certainly 
unfair to the members of the part}'. When the convention 
assembled there was found an almost entire unanimity for 
]Mr. Lincoln against Mr. Douglas. When a banner from 
Chicago, the home of Douglas, was carried into the hall, at 
the head of their delegation, inscribed: "Cook County for 
Abraham Lincoln," the whole convention rose to its feet, 
and gave three cheers for the banner. A resolution was 
unanimously adopted declaring Abraham Lincoln their first 
and onl}' choice for the United States Senate. 

During that day Mr. Lincoln was busy in preparing a 
speech to be delivered to the delegates of the convention 
that evening. Locking himself in his office with Mr. Hern- 
don, his law partner, he read to him the opening paragraphs 
of the speech, and asked criticism. Mr. Herndon replied 
that all he said was true, but he doubted whether it was 
good policy to give it utterance at that time. " That makes 
no difference," responded Mr. Lincoln, "it is the truth and 
the nation is entitled to it;" adding, "a house divided 
against itself can not stand. I believe this government can 
not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the 
house to fall; but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing or all the other. The proposition 
is true, and has been true for six thousand years, and I will 
deliver it as it is written." The speech, so profoundly 
truthful on what the nation must do, and so fraught with 
prophecy, was delivered to the approval of the vast audi- 
ence, and formed the key-note of his position in the memo- 
rable contest with Mr. Douglas. 

In a few weeks Mr. Lincoln invited Judge Douglas to 



236 TEE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

divide time widi him, that together they might discuss the 
great issues before the people. Douglas accepted for seven 
discussions. As the debate would not begin for three weeks, 
Mr. Lincoln proceeded into the State, speaking alone as his 
great opponent was doing. His first speech was at Beards- 
towii, the spot where, twenty-five years before, his company 
had taken rendezvous before starting for the Black Hawk 
war. The first meeting of these physical representatives of 
the antipodes was at Ottawa. Twelve thousand citizens 
assembled to hear the discussion. The gist of the difference 
between them was that Mr. Douglas did not believe in 
negro equality, while Mr. Lincoln believed that the broad 
sweep of the Declaration of Independence included the 
negro as a man, and that he was endowed with the inalien- 
able rights of life, libert}^ and the pursuit of happiness. 
Mr. Douglas looked upon slaver}' with indifference, as a 
thing that might be "voted up or voted down;" Mr. 
Lincoln regarded slaver}' as a criine. 

These debates attracted immense crowds of people; and 
the whole nation looked on with intense interest. The dis 
cussion was the most memorable in the history of politics 
The apportionment of the legislative districts gave a major 
ity of the members to the Democrats, while the majority 
vote was really with the Republicans. INIr. Douglas' mem 
"bers were elected and he was re-installed in the Senate 
INIr. Lincoln was sorely disappointed over the result. When 
the returns came in that insured his defeat, a friend asked 
him how he felt ; he replied that he felt very much like the 
boy who had bruised his toe, " too badly to laugh and too 
big to cry." 

Mr. Lincoln had produced such a profound impression on 
the public mind as an orator, that on finding his practice of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 237 

the law broken up on his return home, he wrote a compre- 
hensive lecture on inventions, beginning with Tubal Cain- 
and ending with the latest offerings of genius. This lecture 
was delivered in Springfield and some other city, but was 
never delivered afterward. Reading lectures and delivering 
stump speeches are very different occupations. Patrick 
Henry failed in selling goods, but on the forum he rang the 
electric alarum for a nation. Henry Ward Beecher is the 
greatest pulpit orator in the world, but those who hear him 
in his lectures are nearly alwa3's disappointed. Lincoln and 
Beecher are not readers, they are orators. A lecture pre- 
pared with care, with eyery sentence polished and scholarly 
effort given to the expression of each thought, lacks the 
flexibility and passion of eloquence. The orator who speaks 
from a thorough mastery of his subject, but leaves the 
precise form of his utterance to the occasion, possesses a 
freedom of manner and delivery unknown to the reader, 
and as the fires of his eloquence flame up, he bears his 
audience to the heights of enthusiasm and conviction. 
When eloquence flames in the study, and is there forged 
into polished sentences, it loses its flavor on being warmed 
over for an audience. 

Failing in his eftbrt to lecture, Mr. Lincoln devoted him- 
self more closely to studies of a political character. On the 
following May, when he entered the wigwam of the State 
Convention at Decatur, he was welcomed with thunders of 
applause. On being seated. Governor Oglesby announced 
that an old Democrat of Macon county desired to make a 
contribution to the convention. He then bore into the room 
two old fence-rails, gaily decorated, and bearing the inscrip- 
tion : " Abraham Lincoln, the rail candidate for the Presi- 
dency in i860. Two rails from a lot of three thousand, 



238 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

made in 1830, by Thomas Hawks and Abe Lincoln, whose 
father was the first pioneer of Macon count}'." The audience, 
already enthused by the reception given Mr. Lincoln, went 
wild with cheers, wave after wave of applause swept over 
the vast crowd, to die away for a moment and then be 
renewed with increased vigor, until the strength of the en- 
thusiastic assembly was exhausted. It was fifteen minutes 
before quiet was restored so the business of the convention 
could proceed. Vague thoughts of the Presidenc}' doubtless 
had floated through his mind since he was supported for the 
second place, but this demonstration evidenced that Illinois 
would present his name for the first place in the coming con- 
test. The following year he visited Kansas and Ohio, where 
his speeches met with distinguished favor. He finall}- recei\'ed 
the in\itation to speak in Cooper Institute, New York, the 
details of the invitation for which speech are given in the 
life of W. G. Greene. Once in the great city, surrounded 
by its whirl and splendor, he began to realize his situation. 
He encased himself in a badly wrinkled suit of black, which 
had evidently journeyed from Illinois in a very small valise. 
He blushed like a school-girl about his clothes, and on an 
introduction to George Bancroft, the historian, he was 
greatly embarressed. While he was the subject of exalted 
aspirations and ambitions, he was filled with a sense of his 
imperfections, and experienced a surprise at every success. 
His triumphs puzzled him, and he betrayed in his conversa- 
tions a desire to know the secret of his power. 

The great hall was crowded to hear the chieftain of the 
West. William Cullen Bryant touched him lightly, barely 
introducing him to the audience. The address was begun 
in a low, monotonous tone, but gaining confidence in the 
respectful stillness, his tones, that had long been keyed to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 239 

out-of-door effort, rose in strength and gained in clearness, 
until every ear heard every word. His st}'le of speech was 
so fresh, his mode of statement was so simple, his illustra- 
tions so quaint and peculiar, that the audience eagerly drank 
in every sentence. The backwoods orator had found one 
of the most appreciative audiences he had ever addressed. 
He carried them on the resistless tide of his logic and by 
the magic of his eloquence, to the peroration of the grandest 
speech ever delivered in the hall of orators; the metropolis 
of the nation, like the prairies of the West, nestled at his 
feet a willing worshiper. 

At the conclusion of the speech, a few friends took the 
speaker to the rooms of the Athenaeum Club for supper. 
Mr. Lincoln appreciated his success; he was as happy at the 
table as upon the platform, full of good humor, felicitous in 
his conversation, and abounding in pleasant stories. He 
threw off all reserve; he had met and conquered, he had 
learned that a man of straight forward common sense, who 
is master of his subject, can talk about it at any place — 
that possessing these qualities, the speech that succeeds in 
the Sangamon bottoms will win like plaudits in New York, 
the capital of politics and learning. The papers of the 
city were full of the speech and comments upon its singular 
ability ; the Illinois lawyer was a lion. 

From the city Mr. Lincoln passed into the New England 
States, making a number of speeches. Everywhere the 
same interest was aroused. The Rev. Mr. Gulliver met 
Mr. Lincoln on the train the day after the Norwich address, 
and told him he had "learned more of the art of public 
speaking last evening than from a whole course of lectures 
on elocution." A professor of rhetoric in Yale College took 
notes of his " style and methods," and gave a lecture to his 



2i0 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

class on it next clay, and satisfied that still more could be 
learned, followed him to jNIeriden on the following evening. 
Thoroughly acquainted with his subject, Mr. Lincoln was all 
aglow with its importance; he spoke, feeling that the destiny 
of the government rested on his making the people under- 
stand and value the crisis at hand. This burning conviction 
moved him like an inspiration. It gave him a clearness of 
statement, an unanswerable style of reasoning, and a fund of 
illustrations, which was romance and pathos, humor and 
logic, all welded together. 

Shortly after Mr. Lincoln's return home the Democratic 
National Convention met at Charleston; disagreeing and di- 
viding, it adjourned to meet at a later date, one wing at 
Baltimore and the other at Richmond. The Republican 
Convention met at Chicago on the i6th of June. The 
country was aroused over these Presidential conventions as 
it had never been agitated before. The nation was passing 
into the throes of a mighty struggle, and foreboding clouds 
hung over the issue of the contest. The attendance at the 
Chicago Convention surpassed any meeting of the kind in 
the history of the country. Bates, M'Lean, Wade, Banks, 
Lincoln, Cameron and Seward were all candidates, with 
Seward and Lincoln in the lead. Mr. Seward was the can- 
didate of the great part}^ managers, and Horace Greeley 
telegraphed to the Tribune that Mr. Seward would be 
nominated. On the first ballot Seward had one hundred 
and seventy-three votes, Lincoln one hundred and two, the 
remainder scattering; on the second ballot the first gain for 
Lincoln was from New Hampshire. Then Vermont fol- 
lowed with her vote, which she had previously given to her 
Senator, Mr. Collamer, as a compliment ; Pennsylvania came 
next to his support with the vote she had given to Cameron, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 241 

On the whole ballot he gained seventy-nine votes, and 
received one hundred and eight3'-one, while Mr. Seward re- 
ceived one hundred and eight3"-four and a halt" votes, having 
gained eleven. 

The announcement of the ^•otes given to Mr. Seward and 
Mr. Lincoln was received with deafening applause by their 
respective partisans. Then came the third ballot. All felt 
that it was likel}' to be the decisive one, and the friends of 
Mr. Seward trembled for the result. Hundreds of pencils 
were in operation, and before the result was announced it 
was whispered through the iinmense and excited mass of 
people that Abraham Lincoln had received two hundred 
and thirty-one and half votes, only lacking one vote and a 
half of election. Mr. Carter, of Ohio, was up in an instant 
to announce the change of four votes in Ohio from Mr. 
Chase to Mr. Lincoln. That finished the work. The 
excitement had culminated. After a moment's pause, like 
the sudden and breathless stillness that precedes the hurricane, 
the storm of wild, uncontrollable and almost insane enthus- 
iasm descended. The scene surpassed description. During 
all the ballotings, a man had been standing upon the roof, 
communicating the results to the outsiders, who, in surging 
masses, far outnumbered those who were packed into the 
wigwam. To this man one of the secretaries shouted, " fire 
the salute; Abe Lincoln is nominated! " Then, as the 
cheering inside died away, the roar began on the outside, 
and swelled up from the excited masses like the noise of 
many waters. This the insiders heard, and to it they 
replied. Thus deep called to deep with such a frenzy of 
sympathetic enthusiasm that even the thundering salute of 
cannon was unheard by many upon the platform. 

Mr. Seward had been in public life for thirty years. His 



242 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

name and fame were established. Mr. Lincoln was untried 
as a statesman, and comparatively unknown. It was a 
severe blow to the aspii-ations of the great politician, but 
was one more evidence that struggling men of worth may 
to some degree trust the intuitions of the people. Having 
risen from mother earth, and still living near the soil, the 
common voice of the country' said: " Give us one of our 
number, that in the perilous times coming we can live close 
to his heart and feel that the nation's interests are being 
guided by a friendly hand." The nomination was the 
triumph of the citizens over the combinations of politicians. 

In the election Mr. Lincoln received i8o electoral votes, 
Mr. Douglas 12, Mr. Breckenridge 72, and Mr. Bell 39. For 
the first time at the polls Mr. Lincoln had triumphed over 
his ancient political opponent. 

The life that had opened in sadness and trials, in the days 
of its victory had that conflict increased. Mr. Lincoln was 
no sooner elected than a strange apprehension filled the na- 
tion. The division of the Union was openly advocated 
through a professed fear that the executi\e would interfere 
with slavery; all his protestations to the contrary were un- 
heeded. When the special train left Springfield lor Wash- 
ington, to bear him to his inauguration, rumors were rife 
that he would never reach there alive. Detectives reported 
a conspirac}' for his assassination while at Baltimore. He 
accordingly, under the direction of Mr. Seward, left his own 
train at Philadelphia, having the telegraph wires cut so that 
his coming could not be sent forward. At half past six on 
the following morning he arrived in Washington, unheralded, 
and with but a single companion. There was probably not 
one man in five in Washington, at the time Mr. Lincoln 
entered the city, who, in his heart, gave him welcome. 



ABBAHAJI LINCOLN. 243 

When the President-elect entered the Senate chamber at 
twelve o'clock, he did not meet that heart}- reception usuall}- 
accorded to incoming Presidents. There was a fear on all 
hearts for his life. The great representative of the nation's 
interests carried his -burdens alone. The inaugm-al was 
listened to with profound attention, none listening more 
carefully than Mr. Buchanan and Judge Taney, the latter of 
whom, with much agitation, administered the oath of office 
to Mr. Lincoln when his address was concluded. The 
address breathed none but the purest constitutional 
patriotism and was intended to alia}' every sectional enmit}' 
and assuage every lo3'al fear. Stephen A. Douglas, his omni- 
present opponent in every political contest, patrioticalh' 
stood by his side while the inaugural was being delivered, 
and "kindly held his hat." 

To those who were dissatisfied with his election and med- 
itated a division of the Union he said, in the close of the 
inaugural, " in 3'our hands, my dissatisfied fellow country- 
men, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. You can have no 
conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have 
no oath registered in Heaven to destro}' the Government, 
while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, 
and defend it. I am loth to close. We are not enemies, 
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. 
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to ever}^ living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of 
the Union, when again touched, as surel}' they will be, by 
the better angels of our nature." 

Mr. Lincoln proved himself true to the principles he 



244 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

uttered when he, with one other, registered a negative vote 
on the question of slavery, a quarter of a century before, in 
the IlHnois Legislature. The country was assured that if a 
war was inaugurated, his opponents would be obliged to 
fire the first gun. He had pledged himself to take no step 
of even doubtful propriety. He proposed simply to possess 
and hold the property of the Unfted States. The South 
was making good the ordinance of secession in the several 
States, in active preparation for war. The press of the 
North became impatient with his apparent inacti\"ity, and 
under its leadership the great North became uneas}'. They 
distrusted the President's ability to lead the nation in such 
peril. 

The fall of Sumpter was the resurrection of confidence; 
the overt act had been committed, and the administration 
struck back. Up to this date, Mr. Lincoln had no basis for 
action in the popular feeling. Now he felt that not only 
abolitionists and alarmists, but the whole North united on the 
necessity of raising an army and protecting the national life. 
The burst of patriotism that answered to the call for 
sevent3'-five thousand troops, showed how well he had 
weighed public sentiment. The war mo^'ed slowly — Mr. 
Lincoln was maligned as few men have ever been — he had 
foes before, and foes behind. Through it all he bore the 
ceaseless storm of discontent, believing that an adjustment 
might be reached without pushing war to its fierce desola- 
tions. The President desired the war closed, with the Union 
preserved and slavery saved untouched to the Southern 
States. He now had opportunity to make history vindicate 
the honesty of his life-long utterances on this question. But 
the liberation of the slaves became a militar}^ necessity. The 
emancipation proclamation was issued, and he became the 



ABRAHMT LINCOLN. 245 

unwilling power for the destruction of slavery, which all his 
life he had recognized as a crime against humanity, but a 
thing sacred in the Constitution. 

Even this proclamation, that one flag-stone in the wide 
morass of despondency on which the wearied man at last 
set a firm foot-hold, did not at first appear to be a step into 
the land of promise. It was uttered too soon to please some 
parties, too late to please others. The battle of Gettysburg 
was the first argument that began to convince the world 
that Mr. Lincoln was right. It has been well said, that 
nothing succeeds but success. Bonaparte professed his 
belief that Providence always went with the strongest bat- 
talions. 

Vicksburg and Gett3-sburg changed the whole face of 
the nation; the}" were the first stations outside of the valley 
of the shadow of death. Mr. Lincoln began, at last, to have 
his vindication. He had not been fighting the war as a great 
general; he was still trudging along the path of his moral 
principles; it unfitted him for the harsh necessities of war. 
He was totally lacking in the Napoleonic qualities. A new 
genius at the head of the army was bringing victory; he was 
learning to let military men say that "war meant war." At 
thij hour the nation put the broad seal of its approbation on 
all his past course and he was re-elected to the Presidential 
chair by an overwhelming majorit}'. 

When the Rebellion collapsed, and the military chieftains 
were putting on their finishing strokes, Mr. Lincoln's great 
happiness at the successful issue was mingled with the 
shadow of new-made graves and desolate homes. He never 
cherished a feeling of harshness; the great burden of his 
thought, as he saw the end approaching, was how best to 
repair this vast destruction, to care for the widows and 



246 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTltT. 

orphans and maimed soldiers, and restore the shattered 
bonds of fraternal union. He ne\er lost himself in all these 
3'ears of conflict. Washington did, and so did Cromwell, 
but Lincoln held the humility of charit}' to the hour of his 
assassination. His last expressions and political actions 
looked toward peace and forgiveness. On the day before 
his assassination, he joyfull}' ordered the discontinuance of 
the draft. His very last official act was to give orders that 
two of the chief leaders of the Rebellion, then expected in 
disguise at a seaport, on their flight to Europe, should not 
be arrested, but permitted to embark. He was thinking of 
saving the lives of the enemies of the Union when they were 
plotting to take his. 

Mr. Lincoln observed to Mr. Lovejoy, in February, 1864, 
" this war is eating m}' life out ; I ha^■e a strong impression 
that I shall not live to see the end." In July following he 
said to a correspondent of the Boston yournal^ "I feel a 
presentiment that I shall not outlast the Rebellion. When 
it is over my work will be done." 

On the evening of the 14th of April, 1865, at Ford's 
Theater, in Washington, J. Wilkes Booth made good the 
threats that had shadowed the President since his first elec- 
tion. The bullet from the assassin's pistol entered the back 
of the head; the murdered President raised his head once, 
and it fell back upon his chair, his eyes closed; he suffered 
no pain, the injury destroyed conscious life; his eyes did not 
open again, neither did he speak; the next morning at half 
past seven he expired. 

Mr. Lincoln was misunderstood by those who opposed 
him, and fell a martyr to his integrity to principle and the 
fierce hatred enkindled by the brutality of war. To him 
the salvation of the Union was paramount to every other 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. / <2A!1 

consideration, but in all the trying scenes of his administra- 
tive years his animosity was never aroused against any man. 
No loyal citizen of the United States w^as so uniformly kind' 
in feeling and courteous in expression about the people of 
the South as Mr. Lincoln. He was gifted with that clear- 
ness of head and honesty of heart that enabled him to 
guide the nation safel}' through the most trying ordeal that 
was ever placed on the administration of any ruler. Those 
qualities that make good substantial citizens — the Hampdens 
of every neighborhood — had the test of their worth tried in 
a great crucible, and were found able to save a wrecking 
nation. 

These qualities of Mr. Lincoln, which under trial proved 
more valuable to the government than the genius of all her 
statesmen, were viewed in Europe as here. Sir George 
Grey, in the English House of Commons, moved an address 
to the Crown, to express the feelings of the House upon the 
assassination of Mr. Lincoln. In this address he said that 
he was convinced that Mr. Lincoln " in the hour of victory, 
and in the triumph of victory, would have shown that wise 
forbearance, and that generous consideration which would 
have added ten-fold lustre to the fame that he had already 
acquired, amidst the varying fortunes of war." 

In seconding the same address, at the same time and 
place, Mr. Benjamin Disraeli said: "But in the character 
of the victim, and in the very accessories of his almost latest 
moments, there is something so homely and so innocent that 
it takes the subject, as it were, out of the pomp of history, 
and out of the ceremonial of diplomacy. It touches the 
heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiments of 
mankind." 

There was great questioning about him in the diplomatic 



248 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

circles- of Europe, when the war began, and a great search 
to understand his abilities and character at home. There 
were times when the impatient murmurs that another sort 
of a man was wanted in his chair, a man with more dash, 
more brilliancy, more Napoleonic efficiency. Yet events 
have shown that in the contest such a man would have 
destroyed all. A brilliant military genius, one thinker has 
said, would have wrecked the republic on the rock of mili- 
tary despotism, where so many good ships have gone down ; 
whereas, slow, cautious Mr. Lincoln only took our rights of 
habeas corpus., and other civil privileges, as he did the specie 
of old to make them legal tender, and brought it all back safe 
and sound. Lincoln was a strong man; but his strength 
was of a peculiar kind; it was not aggressive so much as 
passive, and among passive things it was like the strength, 
not so much of a stone buttress as of a wire cable. It was 
strength swaying to ever}' influence, yielding on this side 
and on that to popular needs, yet tenaciously and inflexibl}' 
bound to carry its great end. Probably by no other kind 
of strength could our national ship have been drawn safely 
through so dreadful a channel. Surrounded by all sorts of 
conflicting claims, by traitors, by half-hearted, timid men, 
by Border State men and Free State men, by radical Aboli- 
tionists and Conservatives, he listened to all, heard all, 
weighed all, and in his own time acted by his own honest 
convictions, and thus simph', and purely, he did the greatest 
work that has been done in modern times. 





/^If'^M^^.n^fiOT}. 





^j;j.f^^^j;HTK)J^- 



And if thou sayest I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 
Lord Angus, thou hast lied. 

— Walter Scott. 

A fire burns in our hearts — we must speak or die. — Stoffoi-d Broo!i&. 




A^l!-]^jij^^?fioi^* 




VERY human being has a core, or central char- 
M r^^"'^ acteristic, around which all the other characteristics 
range themselves. It is that which distinguishes 
one man from every other. It is the " what you are," and 
not the " who you are." When Thomas Gray, musing on 
an unknown grave, exclaimed^ 

" Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, 
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood," 

he had exactly the conception which, for want of a word 
that precisely denotes the thought, will be represented by 
selflwod in this chapter — a self that was capable of the 
glorious productions of Milton, but had mutely retired to 
the grave; that possessed the iron will and executive char- 
acter of Cromwell, but had stood guiltless of their exercise 
to the last. An unasserted self is unmistakably the poet's 
thought. 

Senator Oglesby, of Illinois, furnishes an apt and very 
striking illustration of our theme. When a very young 
man, after he had been admitted to the bar, and before he 
had had much experience in the practice of the law, on one 
occasion he attended court in a county where he was 



252 THE QENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

unknown. A culprit at the bar having no one to defend 
him, the judge asked the legal gentlemen if some one would 
not volunteer for that service. The young stranger arose, 
and, in a rather confused way, said that he would take the 
case. After a short consultation with his client, he stated 
that he was read}' for trial. The veterans exchanged 
glances, and a smile — part incredulit}', part contempt, with 
a tinge of amusement — illumined each face. The counsel 
for the prosecution was a large and powerful man, in the 
vigor of mature manhood, who had had a large practice in 
the courts for many 3-ears. The young stranger knew this 
when he saw him rise to open the case. lie knew a crisis 
in his life was at hand. 

The counsel for the prosecution dwelt particularl}' on the 
bad character of the prisoner; attributed to him every vil- 
lain}^ our language is capable of expressing, and then turned 
upon the opposing counsel, and poured upon him a tornado 
of gibes and taunts. Suddenly he stopped, paused for sev- 
eral seconds, then pointing his finger at our hero, with a 
grimace, exclaimed: " Do you know what I always think 
of when I look at him.''" Still with pointed finger, he 
roared, after another pause, " Beef and onions! " One loud 
burst of laughter shook the court-room. In the midst of 
this uproar, while the assailant still stood with pointed fin- 
ger, the young man, at a single bound, reached him, and 
with one mighty blow, knocked the aggressor clear across 
the forum. Such a shout and clapping of hands was not. 
often heard, even in those pioneer days. 

Many years afterward, Oglesby asserted it as his convic- 
tion that " had I not knocked him down as I did, I never 
could have been anything. A man must not onl}' feel, but 
assert his manhood." 



SELF-ASSERTION. 253 

Without commending this mode of self-assertion, it is but 
just to say, considering the difference of the circumstances,, 
it is exactly paralleled by Pitt, in his reply to Walpole. 
Walpole had accused him of theatrical declamation. Pitt 
closed his reply b}' saying: "But, if any man shall, b}- 
charging me with theatrical behavior, imply that I utter 
any sentiments but nry own, I shall treat him as a calumni- 
ator and a villain; nor shall an}- protection shelter him from 
the treatment he deserves. I shall on such occasion, with- 
out scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth 
and dignit}' intrench themselves; nor shall an}' thing but 
age restrain my resentment — age, which always brings one 
privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without 
punishment." 

How many mute, inglorious Miltons there are! How 
many men who are conscious nature formed them for a 
larger destin}' than they are filling. Men who see, all round 
them, those they know to be by nature and culture their 
inferiors, proudly rushing to victory, while they, alas! are 
trailing along in the rear-guard of the struggle. The success- 
ful men may not be much abo^•e mediocrit}', but they do 
possess some of the elements that tell on the world — -they 
assert themselves. And all the genius and talent the others 
may possess, if held in reserve, will weigh as nothing against 
the self-assertive tact of their competitor. 

Some of the most gifted spirits have been snatched from 
oblivion by the accident of one effort. Tasso would not 
have been known, unless for his madness, had it not been 
for one poem, Jerusalem Delivered. Posterity holds the 
authors of the Old Oaken Bucket, Woodman, Spare that 
Tree, and Home, Sweet Home, by the slender thread of a 
few verses. Col. E. D. Baker, without doubt one of the 



254 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

richest of American orators, will be unknown to the coming 
generation unless the chance publication of his oration over 
Broderick should preserve him. When we consider the 
solitary claim that so inany of our heroes hold on posterit}', 
it is fair to conclude that many having equal mental ability 
have not crossed the line for one achievement. 

Men like DeQuince}', Ir\ing, Cuvier, and BufTon, men 
whose works have poured like a flood on the world, are not 
necessarily possessed of nobler powers than those who have 
restricted the number of their achievements, but they have 
possessed the faculty of execution. This faculty of execution 
is not always commendable. When it gives us a half-dozen 
books from the pen of a Habberton in one year, no matter 
how good some of them ma}' be, a part of them are sure to 
be trashy. The orator on the floor of the "House " who is 
forever running at the mouth will seldom have attentive 
hearers, and more rarely make a good speech. When the 
quantit}' of any thing is great the qualit}' is usually poor. 

On the whole, however, if one has any thing to say or do, 
he had better assert himself. Especially in this age are the 
retiring men likely to be crowded out, and not unfrequently 
by those less worthy. Modest merit is no longer a virtue, 
if to assert one's self is immodest. The man who feels he 
has a mission must not expect some friend to ask the world 
to stop while he quietly and nicely unfolds it. He must 
boldly march to his place of action, take the animal b}' the 
horns, force a hearing, and compel obedience. 

Self-assertion has been the reformatory power of the 
world. Luther, and Calvin, and Wesley, and Campbell 
felt a mission pressing on their souls, and the}' would give it 
■vent if e\'ery tile on the house-tops were an opposing devil. 
When Harvey announced the circulation of the blood, and 



SELF.ASSEETIOy. 255 

Jenner prophesied the vakie of vaccination, they knew the 
world of thought and learning would be arra3'ed against 
them. But such souls must burst the &gg of their concep- 
tion on the world or their spirits would rend their bodies. 
Our constitutional fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, 
and their sacred honor to the inalienable rights of every 
man. Calhoun believed in the right of secession, and dared 
maintain it. President Jackson did not, and, " B}' the Eternal, 
would hang every man that tried to enact it." William 
Llo3'd Garrison spoke for equality before the law, " would 
not equivocate," and would "be heard." Out of the throes 
of such spirits does the world receive a fire that purifies the 
nations and upbuilds manhood. 

Horace Greeley began life with no favoring surroundings. 
He scorned the luxuries of wealth and all the wiles of the 
flatterer. He only knew to speak that which he believed 
to be true. All his eventful life he was a target for some 
class of the community, and frequently the opposition of the 
whole country was leveled against him; but no man re- 
spected it more and heeded it less. The one supreme 
thought of his life was to advocate what self thought to be 
right. He did it when he signed the bond of Jetf. Davis; 
and finall}', when he did that which caused his final defeat, 
hastened his death and involved his reputation, he did it 
with the supreme conviction that he could heal the national 
wounds, and bring order and prosperit}^ out of chaos. 

Take that statesman who died recently — -Senator Morton. 
All men concede his greatness, but many condemn him for 
his relentless advocacy of certain principles. Therein is 
where men of his iron build are not understood. Morton 
believed that a certain line of legislation was essential to the 
perpetuit}' of the nation; believing it, he ad\-ocated it in its 



256 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

extremest character. His nature spurned a compromise; 
his fates drove him irresistibly on to all he did, and he could 
not have helped it if he had bankrupted the universe. And 
so, Calhoun — who would have measured swords with Mor- 
ton, if they had been in the Senate together — must speak 
and practice the faith that was in him, or the world would 
not be able to hold his frail body. 

Robert Emmet lost his head for daring to strike for the 
liberty of Ireland. His unconquered soul said, in his last 
speech: "Let no man mark my tomb until m}' country 
takes her place among the nations of the earth." His rough 
granite stands there in Dublin, unchiseled, unlettered, a 
silent slab. But the spirits of such men walk abroad, though 
their bodies sleep; and the asserted patriotism of her few 
martyrs is the seed that is daily germinating into new life 
in her sleeping people, and ere long will give to the world a 
free Ireland. 

One man frequently sees another of no greater ability 
than himself boldly reach up, and, by daring to do it, develop 
some unusual achievement while he has thought to do that 
very thing; but for some, to him, unaccountable reason, he 
failed to grapple the issue, and now walks unknown in the 
rear of the victor. No more stinging bitterness can be 
conceived. The yawning chasm that lies between the 
undeveloped hero and him who has won the world's notice, 
consists only in the " putting forth of self." But that is every- 
thing. Opportunities come to all men ; but he whose genius 
can make an opportunity is panoplied for any event in life. 

Take the great throbbing centers of commerce. There 
openings for achievements, in various avenues, are thrust 
upon men daily. Yet few seem to know the hour of their 
appearance, or the order of their coming. They rush 



SELF-ASSERTION. 257 

blindly on in the old rut, gaining to-day and losing to-mor- 
row, and never, in truth, accomplishing any thing worthy. 
At the same time there is a Vanderbilt or a Clatiin, strange 
to the city and unaquainted with the ways of trade, thrown 
into the channels of commerce, who at once becomes a 
leader. It is not simply will-power nor self-reliance that 
does this. It is the assertion of" self, made in so peculiar 
and potent a way, that men and trade instinctively yield 
the mastery. 

Egotism is not self-assertion. The profoundest egotists 
are sometimes the most consummate plagiarists. That 
puflSng, bellowing Dr. Push, who presses his advice upon 
every consiimptive he meets, volunteers an alterative to 
every dyspeptic of his acquaintance, and issues a gratuitous 
prescription to every sick and dying man in the community, 
is only an egotist thirsting lor practice and popularity. 
Rather does the plwsician who, after examining the patient, 
and soberly weighing all the contingencies in the case, decide 
upon his course by the aid of thought and investigation, 
and quietly carry it out in spite of the patient, family or text- 
books. He may not be so notorious in the communit}', and 
perhaps for a time will not thrive alongside of Dr. Push, 
but he is the man sober people will prefer to trust, and in 
the end he will have pushed the egotist off the track. 

Self-hood has little confidence in an opinion or an assist- 
ance because the ego gives it. It speaks or does a thing 
from principle. It asserts because a thing is true; and 
because it is true, it can not keep from asserting it. That 
long line of mart3'rs to religion, science, and ideas, from 
Hypatia to John Brown, had all their egotism swallowed up 
in a grander selfhood. Over against the " ego " they wrote 
"principle," and were willing there and thus to die. 



258 THE OENJUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Emerson beautifully says, of such a character as we seek 
to delineate, ''It makes an overpowering" present; a cheer- 
ful, determined hour which fortifies all the company, b}' 
making them see that much is possible and excellent that 
was not thought of." It dulls the impression of particular 
events. When we see the conqueror, we do not think much 
of any one battle or success. We see that we had exag- 
gerated the ditSculty. It was easy to him. The great man 
is serene and equable. Events pass over hiin without stir- 
ring the profound depths of his soul. 

No man can do a thrifty business, in working up self- 
assertion, who lies under a load of debt. To be in debt is 
to be in prison. Whichever way one turns, he strikes 
against some impassable wall. I lis cell is too narrow, either 
to allow him to stretch out or to stand upright. To ven- 
ture on selfassertion, in so grave a predicament as this, 
would be as laughable as to attempt to extricate oneself 
from the depths of a quagmire, by a hop, step and jump. 
But, it is said, let a man stand on his manhood, whatever 
befalls. So say we, but can he.'' Talk about a pleading, 
cringing, humbled debtor exercising self-assertion! Some 
men, so situated, exercise cheek, and others flunkeyism; 
some indulge in penitence, and many in remorse; some pre- 
varicate, and others exercise themselves in a forlorn hope; 
some in a brilliant series of collapsing promises; some in an 
occasional spasmodic, struggling-kick; but few are capable 
"of manly self-assertion. 

Self-assertion lies in utter disregard of wealth or glor}-. 
There wasn\ enough gold in Congress to buy the sturdy 
statesman of Roanoke, or change the ^•ote of the lofty Cal- 
houn. So no man ever charged Milton with corruption or 
bribes. When he felt his country in danger, he threw aside 



SELF-ASSERTION. 259 

poetry, that idol of his heart, which was winning him a 
world of friends, and destined to write his name in immortal 
characters — he threw it all aside, and employed his \oice 
and pen, with Cromwell, against the aggressions of prelacy 
and the tyranny of kings. Were not the grandest orations 
of Demosthenes spoken, not for self, but for others' good? 
The men who can cast out self, and lay themselves on the 
altar of principle, possess one element of true greatness. 
The proudest and noblest self-assertion we remember to 
have heard of, was that of Professor Agassiz, when some 
one exclaimed that, with his knowledge and abilities, he 
might make a great deal of money. " Sir," replied Agas- 
siz, " I ha\e no time to make money." 

Winchell, in his late work on Science and Religion, says: 
" The din of a great controversy sounds in our ears. Men 
of thought have been summoned to choose their banner and 
range themselves upon one side or the other of the line of 
battle. It might be expected that I should appear before 
you in a militant character. I do not. * * * * j \o\e 
peace. I shall be reproached for weakness. We shall hear 
of somebody 'on the fence.' Extremists will sa}^ I have no 
opinions, and court the favor of both combatants. I shall, 
nevertheless, be brave enough to face such dangers; and I 
shall deliberately incur the risk of losing the favor of both 
combatants by refusing to take sides with either. To be 
positive is not to be strong; to be dogmatic is not to be 
brave. To be right is to be both strong and brave." 

Look at the career of that statesman of the old Common- 
wealth, Charles Sumner. As a boy at school, he never 
engaged in the sports of his mates. Knowledge was his 
aim; he had no time for recreation. He was the pet and 
pride of Boston when, on the Fourth of Jul}', 1 844, he was 



260 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

elected her orator. His speech was a blow in the face of all 
Massachusetts, and in one hour the budding leaves on the 
tree of his prosperity were nipped. Friends and foes stood 
in a common phalanx against him. He was ostracised from 
every social gathering in the State, except at Longfellow's, 
and never after received a fee as an attorney. 

An unprecedented eruption and combination of political 
forces gave him a seat in the United States Senate in 1851. 
Here he again struck a blow to all personal glory, and Rich- 
ard H. Dana said: "Sumner is a cat without a smeller." 
From that time on until his death, he was striking friends 
and enemies alike. He had no conception of popularity, no 
estimate of men, no dream of ambition; he was an exile 
from his party when he died, and had scarcely known the 
pleasure of a social hour for thirty 3'ears. 

Once taking his stand, he went forward as though all the 
world was in his support; he knew no diflerence. But prin- 
ciples and exact truth he knew, and searched through thir 
teen editions of one author to make sure a quotation was 
exactly correct. He was the embodiment of self-hood. He 
filled the four requisitions of greatness — he was without 
selfishness; he never faltered in asserting the faith within 
his soul; his life was given to the proclamation of a great 
principle, and he saw it triumph before he died. 

To get out all there is in one is a problem of life. John 
Hampden was without genius, and only mediocre in talent, but 
he held his convictions with earnest intensity; he /;^«5/ proclaim 
them. What is a small faith in other men becomes a passion 
with these men. So, when the men of genius and culture, and 
the lords and barons failed, John Hampden quietly pointed 
out the path that must be taken, left the farm, grasped the 
helm of state, and tided the nation through a great storm. 



SELF-ASSERTION. 261 

Horace Walpole was certainly not above mediocrity. 
Macaulay says his oratory " was nonsense, effervescent with 
animal spirit and impertinence." All the able men of his 
time ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveler, a child who never 
knew his own mind for an hour together; and yet he over- 
reached them all. 

He despised learning, hated fame, loved gardening, adorned 
his house with pie-crust battlements, and only seemed to 
talk politics and go to Parliament for pastime. Yet the 
slightest idea of governmental policy that ever crawled into 
his brain was asserted with such unction as to its feasibility 
and excellence, that the nation almost universally received 
it as from an oracle. For thirty years he was Secretary of 
State, and during ten years First Lord of the Treasury. 
No man ever ruled England so easily as Walpole. He 
never doubted himself. 

It is an accepted fact that a majority of the world's leaders 
in every age have risen without the advantages of education 
or wealth. All around these men in the lower walks of life 
are those who possess rare attainments, and with them have 
all the perseverance and ambition known to men. The 
higher advancement of the others is not because the world 
pays a premium on the uncultured and the poor, but because 
the same amount of native ability, when asserted, is of more 
value than when it is gilt-edged and ingloriously mute. One 
may have much perseverance (but so has the blind horse on 
the tread-mill), and he may be eaten up of ambition, as was 
Voltaire, and yet lack this great requisite of self-hood. 
Counsel with sagacity. Be cautious and meditative in all 
that you say and do. After all this, obey the faith of the 
soul, and never flinch. 




p^^j^ny j^m- 



'He was a man; take him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again.' 





fm^l^h^. 




ENRY CLAY had a mother. A mother is every- 
K^ r thing to a child, either for good or for evil. His 
<:>'■'> mother was everything to him for good — teacher, 
stimulator, friend. Childhood, in statuary, may charm the 
eye, by reason of its grace and perfection, and may be pur- 
chased by money; but when you possess it, it has neither 
thought nor heart, and is impassive. Mothers are the 
sculptors of human life, making luminous the lineaments of 
the face with the light of cultivated intellect and the instinct 
of purity; informing the plastic soul with great hopes and 
inspirations, conscious of having received it from the womb 
of destiny ; or, by their negligence and their criminality, so 
warping and defacing, in the infant, the Divine image, that 
when they start their offspring out on to the highway of 
life, it is at once seized upon and occupied by a legion of 
unclean spirits. It is said that a house in one of the North- 
ern States is so situated that as a rain-drop falls on one side 
of the roof, or the other, its mission is blessed with fruitful- 
ness or blighted in the waste of seas. If it fall upon one 
side, it rushes down a declivity, empties into Lake Superior, 
plunges on over jagged rocks, leaps the ramparts of Niagara, 



264 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

and loses itself in the broad Atlantic; if it chance to fall 
upon the other side of the roof, it flows by rill, rivulet and 
river to the Father of Waters, and empties not into the 
gulf until it has made fruitful the tields of three thousand 
miles, and gladdened the homes of millions. So, when the 
frail infant is cast upon our shores, a mother's influence may 
turn it hither or thither, either to bless or to ban. 

Henry Clay was blessed with a mother whose love for 
her sickly boy, and sympathy for his hopeless poNcrt}-, 
caused her to speak encouraging words in his ear, smooth 
with her hands the rough way for his tender feet, and kin- 
dle a beacon for him, whose guidance he never lost sight of 
in all his long life. This man had no illustrious pedigree 
like Demosthenes, Cicero, Chatham and Henry. He forged 
the lightnings of greatness with his own hands. Like 
Cuvier, having dissected the skeletons of the li\'ing and the 
dead, he was his own anatomizer. He held that he who 
was familiar with analysis would comprehend s}'nthesis — 
that to be constructive one must be destructive. Hence it 
was the pleasure of his youth to examine into the elements 
of an oration, as it was the business of his manhood to 
become one of the authors of politics. 

If Bonaparte had a lordly lineage he forbade its mention, 
for he despised borrowed greatness. When the Austrian 
monarch was preparing to make him his son-in-law he busied 
himself in searching for his ro3'al descent, and was deter- 
mined to make it out, even as they put great speeches into 
the mouths of kings. Bonaparte visited him at once, and 
exclaimed, " Stop, stop, sire! I alone am the author of m}- 
fortune, and desire it to be so understood : neither royalty 
nor royal descent has contributed any thing to its achieve- 



HhJNlir CLAY. 265 

merit, and though I might legitimately claim both, I would 
not mention either." 

We do not know that a similar indifference was felt by 
Mr. Clay relative to his lineage, but his plain, unostentatious 
habits and firm adherence to republican principles warrant 
us in presuming that such was the case. Certain it is, how- 
ever, that for the elevated position he occupied he was as 
little indebted to any ad\'entitious advantages of birth or 
fortune as was the mighty conqueror; and with equal 
propriety might he have said, in view of the means by 
which he had attained that position, I alone am the archi- 
tect of my fortune. Having no titled ancestr}', he was not 
compelled, like Erskine, to rise in spite of them. This son 
of a Baptist clergyman first breathed the air of the Old 
Dominion in less than a year after the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, on the 1 2th of April, 1777. The father died in a 
few years, leaving the clergyman's usual legacy, a large, 
poverty-stricken family. 

It is a well-known truth, that those who are familiar with 
the beauties and sublimities of the natural world are 
distinguished for expansive and noble views. The coal- 
miner, born and reared in the shaft, can not appreciate the 
high admiration of nature possessed by the Scot, whose 
home is upheld by some lofty crag, overlooking mountain 
and sea. And parallel to this effect is that where one is 
surrounded by the magnificent scenery of the mental and 
moral world, where Shakspeare and Milton, Talleyrand 
and DeQuincey, Addison and Goldsmith, are arrayed in 
their glories before him; or is confined to the smutty cells 
of a Woodhull or a Sterne, a Don Juan or a Boccacio. 
Hence the sage custom of the ancient Greeks, of grouping 
around the }'oung men who were to assume the responsi- 



266 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

bilities of public life every appropriate and imposing cir- 
cumstance. In close connection with the precept, " knoiv 
thyself., " they placed that of " know the good and the great 
of others.'''' They held that the contemplation of deeds of 
mental and moral grandeur induced and nurtured patriotic 
ardor. It is said that the d3'ing Napoleon II would read 
the story of his father's might and then totter from his 
couch to swing his father's saber; and that when Hamilcar 
painted for his boy the dashing horsemanship and valorous 
deeds of the fathers, Hannibal practiced his pony o\er the 
logs of the forest and drove his lance into the trees, till with 
such spirited training, assuming command, he became at 
once the terror of Rome and the glory of Carthage. 

Henry Clay's mother told her son of the tyranny of King 
George, of taxation without representation, of Bunker Hill 
and Warren, of Valley Forge and Washington, of univer- 
sal philanthropy and LaFayette. She bade him listen to 
the lofty pleadings of Jefferson, Hamilton and Adams, and 
the electric alarums of Henry. She told htm that shot and 
shell, desolation and carnage, limbless bodies and new-made 
graves, weeping children and heart-stricken mothers, sacri- 
fices of wealth and homes and life, were all to make true 
God's promise of inalienable human rights, and to build on 
this side the waters a nation of freemen. At this mother- 
fountain deeply did he drink of the impulses of heroic 
action, filling his soul with hatred of oppression, burning 
and insatiate as that of Cromwell or Milton. The heights 
of his eloquence and moral achievement, upheaved by the 
hand of his power, along the pathwa}' of his life, until the 
last act, stand like mountain peaks piled to a climax. He 
grew up controlled by no sectional feeling. His patriotism 
was larger than his State, and his philanthropy broader than 



HENRT CLAY. 267 

his country. The benevolence on which he planted himself 
was so lofty that it enabled him while legislating for his 
own country in particular, to see and care for the interests 
of all countries. 

His great character, his matchless will-power, the thoughts 
which he entertained, the words which he spoke, his large 
sagacity, his marked individualit}', his conscientious perse- 
verance, his self-wrought manhood, and his magnificent 
patriotism, which achieved for his country continued peace 
and prosperity — for himself a place like that of a household 
god in every American heart: we wish succinctly to speak 
of these, for in the orator we want to find a model for the 
man. 

Men often bear what seem to be two distinct characters 
— so distinct as to amount to apparent contradictions. The 
question with the biographer, in such a case, must be: 
Which will give the most correct impression.? which repre- 
sents most truly the effective character.-^ Charles II sought, 
in disguise, the acquaintance of the author of " Hudibras," 
thinking that he should find him a most facetious fellow; 
but so great was the king's disappointment that he was led 
to pronounce Butler a stupid blockhead, and to declare it to 
be impossible that he could ever have written so witty a 
book. Tradition affirms of Shakspeare that, after obtaining 
a competency from his dramatic works, he settled down 
quietly upon a farm, varying the monotony of his life b}' an 
occasional visit to the nearest market town to execute 
small commissions for himself and his neighbors. What 
idea of the immortal dramatist should we now possess, had 
it been left to one of those neighbors to transmit his personal 
impressions of the " chiel amang them! " 

The elegant Addison and the genial Lamb are said to 



268 THE (JENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

have been veiy reserved in society. The}' had two sides — 
one holding a pen flowing with melhfluous strains; the other 
paralyzed by contact. Carlyle, like Dr. Johnson, rasps like 
a Shetheld tile, unless you consent to be borne on the cur- 
rent of his opinion. They both look on men who disagree 
with themselves as liars and idiots. These men, whose shafts 
of satire flew fierce and swift at friend and foe, are unfortunate 
in having biographers of their social life. But we have to 
deal with one who lo\ed his friends, hurled his thunders 
onl}' against an enemy, and through it all vindicated his 
manhood. Many foes had he in the political arena, but in 
the social circle none, and even his enemies were his admir- 
ers. Take one instance: Randolph and Clay were old 
enemies. The Senate chamber trembled, as Ol3a'npus under 
the tread of the gods, when these giants crossed swords. 
Feeble, and knowing he soon must die, Randolph was con- 
veyed to the chamber. When Clay rose to speak, he said: 
"Lift me up! lilt me up! I want to hear that voice, and 
see the man once more." Clay, overcome, stepped forward, 
clasped his hand, and the two statesmen were in tears. 

It is customary for biographers to write their hero an 
unusually precocious child or a lamentable idiot. Fortu- 
nately, we are not compelled to put young Clay in either 
category. He did not exhibit the youthful profundity of 
Burke, nor develop the geometrical precision of Blaise Pas- 
cal, nor overwhelm people by the ten-3'ear-old oratory of a 
Pitt; neither, on the contrary, was he an incorrigible dunce, 
like Sheridan, nor a booby, like Swift, nor an eye-blacker, 
like the "saintly Barrow." As the Duchess d'Abrantes 
said of Bonaparte, " He was in all respects like other boys," 
only he was not strong enough to roll large stones about, 
like Adam Clarke. He was a jangle-legged, tow-headed, 



HENRY CLAY. . 269 

moone3'ed young granger — as common a specimen of the 
overplowed boy as could be found in Virginia. Had you 
seen him astride the bUnd mare, gee-hawing her with a 
rope halter, " a-toting " the grist to old Mrs. Darricott's 
mill, you would have seen no prophecy of the diplomat who 
manipulated the treaty of Ghent. He was as silent as the 
Sphinx, on his destin}', in all probability not knowing the 
meaning of the word. He gave no premonitions of the 
coming man; he was merely a green, country boy. 

Robert Peel and Gladstone were born to the privileges of 
glorious old Oxford; but to such educational facilities Cla}'^ 
was a stranger. His classic hall was a log school-house on 
the Pamunky River; his Professor Jowett was Peter Dea- 
con; his curriculum was reading, writing and ciphering " to 
the double rule of three;" and his course was three short 
winters. No wonder, then, he felt keenly the thrust of 
Randolph's poisoned lance, hurled at his poverty and lack 
of education, and feelingly replied: " My onl}' heritage has 
been infanc}', indigence and ignorance; but these were my 
misfortune, not my crime." 

At the age of fourteen he went to Richmond, as clerk in 
the store of Peter Denney. Up to this time he had read 
but little. A limited number of the few books in his father's 
library had received a rapid reading at his hands, and that 
only to gratify his mother's earnest wishes. His years so 
far had been spent in a boy's characteristic dilatoriness. 
The advent in the Richmond store marked a new era for 
him; it opened his rustic eyes on another world than the 
" slashes." He had no predilection for merchandising, and 
its uncongenial duties bore heavily on his mind. In less 
than a year, his step-father, Captain Watkins, secured him 



270 THE GENIUS OB' INDUSTRY. 

a clerkship in the office of Peter Tinsley, Clerk of the 
Court of Chancery, in Richmond. 

Here the awkward boy met his first trial. He could fish 
and hunt, and go to mill in his nati\'e Hanover, and be con- 
tented, for he was the equal of other boys; but when his 
home-made coat and trousers came into contact with a " city 
cut," his uncouth manner seemed aggravated, and his sensi- 
tive nature shrank in mortification from his new companions. 
Of course the office-boys were not long in disco^"ering• this 
fresh victim for their jokes, and unsparingl}' made him the 
butt of all their fun. To Clay this was torture. He wended 
his way to his lodgings, evening after evening, flinging him- 
self on his bed in tears. He felt that he was a "country 
boy," and that every one knew it; that he was in no sense a 
match for those cit}' bo}s, for he could not dress as they 
did, nor act and talk in their '' citified " way. But to feel 
that he was the target for every witticism was unbearable 
above all else. 

To cross swords with Webster or feel Randolph's duelling 
pistol leveled at his breast, in after years, did not disturb his 
soul as did his dail}' encounters with these shrewd young 
dandies of the office. Between the wit of the boys and the 
persecution of his own feelings, he perspired like the statue 
of Orpheus when Alexander hesitated to start on his world- 
conquering mission. Six months of mortal agony were 
thus put through, when it came to such a pass that he 
realized that he must either leave the office or defend 
himself. One salient stroke of repartee, the next day, 
silenced his astonished foes. Another one, that afternoon, 
brought a cheer from the whole house, save the one at 
whom it was directed. For him it was a scorpion's sting. 
That night he slept better than he had for weeks, and from 



HENRY CLAY. 271 

that da}' forward he carried his sword unsheathed. He soon 
came to be recognized as the leader of the company. 

While he was too generous to make war upon those who 
persecuted him in the day of his weakness, he was too 
much of a general to pause at the parrying of a thrust. He 
never stopped until he had disarmed his enemy. It was 
understood that hfe never provoked a quarrel, but whoever 
attacked him would have the starch knocked out of his 
presumption, and be laughed to the rear in an ambulance of 
wit. His slashing retorts soon made him admirers 
everywhere, but down to his last days he used them in 
maintaining merely a defensive attitude. It was not in the 
statesman of "compromises " to be an assailant. 

The idea of doing something for himself in life now 
began gradually to dawn upon his mind. Like Sir Walter 
Scott, at that same age, he knew little of books and nothing 
of men, except by hearsay. It was at. this time he com- 
menced a course of historical readings, suggested by Mr. 
Tinsley. 

The salutary influence of scholarly associations has been 
felt and acknowledged by many of our most eminent men. 
Some one has said, " A man is known by the company he 
keeps." It is true that one's thoughts and actions are 
shaped by the company he keeps, be it in the form of books 
or men. Franklin always attributed his usefulness to the 
early reading of Cotton Mather's "Essays to do Good;" 
and Dr. Wolft' was stimulated to his missionary career by 
reading the life of Frances Xavier. The same benign 
result has been experienced in personal companionship with 
the learned. Sir Francis Horner always sought fellowship 
with a higher standard of mind than his own. Of intelligent 
men he had associated with, he says: " I can not hesitate to 



272 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

decide that I have derived more intellectual improvement 
from them than from all the books I have turned over.'^ 
Lord Shelburne, when a young man, paid a visit to the 
venerable Malesherbes, and was so much impressed that he 
said: "I have traveled much, but I have never been so 
influenced by personal contact with any man; and if ever I 
accomplish any good in the course of my life, I am certain 
that the recollection of M. de Malesherbes will animate my 
soul." Bonaparte said he never knew how to be a gentle- 
man until he met Talma, the actor. 

Thus were moral tone and intellectual healthfulness 
imparted to Henry Clay by contact with that ripe scholar 
and hoar}' "signer of the Declaration," Chancellor AVythe. 
Counsel from self-made men is always more wholesome to 
a struggling boy than from one that has paced the primrose 
path with his gold-headed cane. George Wythe had felt 
the surging waves of aspiration beating in his own breast, 
during an early orphanage, and knew from experience the 
bitter adversity begotten b}' contact with superfluous wealth. 
The flush of fortune and the profligacy of youth had well- 
nigh destroyed his ambition. 

Hence, in his frequent visits to Mr. Tinsley's office, it was 
with pain he observed the dissipation of the clerks; but he 
also remarked, with satisfaction, the stubborn resistance with 
which Henry met every fast tendenc}-, and the conscientious 
self sacrifice with which he would forego good dressing, to 
save the few dollars he was now earning for future use. 
He knew what industry could accomplish, for after having 
wasted all his substance in riotous living, he commenced 
in manhood, to recover his lost time. By diligent applica- 
tion he was enabled to atone, in some measure, for his 



HENliT CLAT. 273 

misspent years, so that he came to be a conspicuous advo- 
cate even before the Revolution. 

He procured from Mr. Tinsley the services of Henry 
Clay, as an occasional secretary, to copy his decisions. 
Even now in his advanced years Chancellor Wythe pros- 
ecuted his studies with great diligence and far-reaching 
investigation: in learning, industry and sound judgment he 
had few equals, and to act as the private secretary of such 
a man was itself an education. An intimate friendship soon 
grew up between the gray and white hairs. The Chancellor 
loved Henry as a son, and Clay venerated him as a father 
and teacher. Advice in strict legal knowledge, classics^ 
history, and polite literature, poured upon the young secre- 
tary in an unceasing current. He was a constant student, 
needing only suggestions to turn his mind in right direc- 
tions. 

A hint from any source that bore upon his culture he 
seized eagerly and implicitly obeyed it. No friend who 
counseled him was ever made to feel that he was in the least 
degree inattentive. Thus rewarding help by docility, he 
soon enlisted many friends in his welfare. While he was 
deprived of the thorough scholastic training that was pos- 
sessed by Choate and Calhoun, yet he was receiving an 
intellectual and practical drill that was specially adapted to 
his mind. He was unique in two particulars. First he 
abounded in intuitions, and besides this, his powers of gen- 
eralization were broader than usually fall to the lot of the 
lawyer. So that, all in all, he was competent to cope suc- 
cessfuU}' with his more illustrious compeers. 

At the age of nineteen he decided to study law, and to 
this end was enrolled as a student in the offce of Attorney- 
General Brooke. The preceding three years had been so 



274 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

skillfully manipulated in this direction that, after one 3'ear 
of regular stud}- for the bar, he was admitted into the Court 
of Appeals, as an attorney, though 3'et a minor. 

With that unflagging determination to " reach up " for 
his friends, we find him at this time forming the acquaint- 
ance of John Marshall, afterward Chief Justice of the United 
States. These companionships were never manoeu\-ered for. 
In no sense would he truckle or plot tor position. His 
upward bent of mind and manl}- aspirations caused him to 
seek them without conscious assumption. It was not arro- 
gance in Clay; he simpl}^ could not tolerate the societ}' of 
those who knew no more than he. Whenever he found a 
Gamaliel, he sat, as a teachable Saul, at his feet. He was 
never afraid to ask questions. In this he seemed plagued 
with Socrates' ghost, excepting that what the Athenian did 
in sly cynicism, he did deferentially. He cornered every 
old judge he met, plying him with suppositious cases, wish- 
ing to know what his " honor " thought, until he would have 
charmed any Common Pleas judge in the nation into friend- 
ship. 

So it was in the sciences, in theology, politics, histor}', 
literature, every thing in which he was not posted. He 
seized upon the first man he thought could inform him, and 
honestly applied the divining rod, that he too might know. 
His frank questionings thus secured to him an encyclopedia 
of thoughts and facts which, in the same length of time, he 
could have gained in no other way. 

He could not help being a patriot. He had an oppor- 
tunity of acquiring at the fountain-head a knowledge of the 
meaning of the founders of the republic, in the constitution 
which they drew up, and the laws which were passed 
explanatory of it. His intimate relationship with Wythe, 



HENRY CLAY. 275 

Marshall, Brooke, and man}' other political patriarchs, 
apprised him of the cost of the Union, with which, really, 
his life may be said to have begun; and in liis later }'ears he 
proved himself, on many occasions, to be the friend of his 
country, and one of its ablest defenders, whether the danger 
came from foreign foes or from internal dissensions. 

Clay was now twenty j'ears of age, and a member of the 
Richmond bar. Still he displayed no intellectual superior- 
ity. He was a member of a literary society, quite active in 
its interests, and alwaj's in his seat, but his occasional 
remarks were considered by no means superior to those of 
the majorit}\ He was not remarkable for those brilliant 
things which flashed from Ensign Erskine. But he %uas 
noted for his straightforwardness and indefatigable energy. 
The fires of ambition were now burning at a white heat. 
He longed for an opportunity to try his powers, and put his 
thumb on Nature's pulse, that he might learn what destiny 
she was bearing him to. He craved a field of battle as 
earnestly as Marathon's victor pra3-ed for the tard}' sun to 
hasten up. Yet he felt that he could not make that start in 
Richmond, in the presence of his old friends. His eagle ej'e 
was not in " the keeping of the gods," and his sensitive 
nature shrank from possible defeat. However, his eager 
soul could wait no longer for the battle. It was then he left 
Richmond, and, as though anticipating Greeley, came West. 

He overlooked Cincinnati, Louisville, and Frankfort, and 
settled in Lexington, Kentucky. Why he chose this point 
is not known, unless it was to be near his mother, who had 
emigrated to this place a few years before. Of this period 
he writes: "I established myself in Lexington in 1797, 
without patrons, without the favor or countenance of the 
great or opulent, without the means of paying my weekly 



276 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

board, and in the midst of a bar distinguished b}' eminent 
members. I remember how comfortable I thought I should 
be if I could make one hundred pounds, Virginia money, 
per year, and with what delight I received the first fifteen 
shillings fee." He did not enter at once upon the practice 
of law in Lexington, but allowed some months to pass in 
farther preparatory studies before he applied for admission 
as a practitioner. He had a guaranty of success in his 
modest estimation of his own acquirements; and knowing 
tlie distinguished men with whom he would have to cope, 
he preferred to wait and review his studies and discipline his 
mind by renewed application. 

These waiting months were put in more assiduously than 
ever in sharpening his weapons and polishing his mental 
armor. He was modest, unassuming, still feeble in consti- 
tution, languid and listless in his movements, giving no 
indication of the mighty purpose that was forming in his 
breast. But it must out ere long, or his frail body, that was 
already tottering under the load, would be crushed from the 
recoil of its own strength. It was at this time he became a 
member of that famous debating club wherein he made his 
first speech that attracted attention, and which he said gave 
him more self-confidence than any thing he had ever done 
up to that time. The question had been discussed at con- 
siderable length, and apparently with much ability, on which 
the customary vote was about to be taken, when he observed 
in an undertone to a person seated by him, " The subject 
does not seem to be exhausted." The individual addressed 
exclaimed, "Do not put the question yet; Mr. Clay will 
speak." The chairman, by a smile and nod of the head, 
signified his willingness to allow the discussion to be contin- 
ued, and Clay thereupon arose under every appearance of 



HENRY CLAY. 211 

trepidation and embarrassment. The first words that fell 
from his lips were, "Gentlemen of the jury." His embar- 
rassment now was extreme; blushing, hesitating, and 
stammering, he repeated the words, " Gentlemen of the 
jury." The audience evinced genuine politeness and good 
breeding, by seeming not to notice his peculiarly unpleasant 
and tr3-ing position. Their courtes}- restored his composure. 
He gradually gained control of his mind; his ideas began to 
flow clear, and his persistent straining after correct forms of 
speech caused them to be happily expressed. An earnest 
desire to thoroughly redeem his opening speech from the 
appearance of failure which it first assumed, quickened his 
intellect and fired his emotions. Whatever credit for abili- 
ties his silent good sense might have acquired for him 
before, his success now surprised and delighted his audience. 
That was an auspicious evening to hiin. It lifted the long- 
closed flood-gates and let the pent-up determinations go 
forth to action. It cast the horoscope of destin}-, and gave 
assurance that the predictions of the old Chancellor would 
be realized. 

Clay was now on his wa}' to make a successful law3-er. 
That speech, in profundity of thought, eloquence and effect 
on the audience, was, of course, far short of the stupendous 
character that history has assigned it. It was an unusual 
speech for a debating club, but, like Patrick Henry's great 
first speech, it was the gathered tliunders of many da3-s, 
and, pealing from a clear sk}', it was more startling than 
grand. Thenceforward he considered his ability to make a 
speech no longer a question. The expectations of the com- 
munity were to be allies on his side, and he himself had 
awaked to a consciousness of his power. 

To every class of mind there is something fascinating in 



278 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the eloquence of proibuncl feeling. It arises, in part, from a 
natural admiration of the display of loft}' power. But per- 
haps none give themselves up so entirely to its influence as 
do the unlearned and uncritical. Unaccustomed to dissem- 
ble their emotions, impulsiveness becomes their ruling habit; 
and, with something of the simplicity of children, they yield 
themselves to the power of the orator. Eloquence is 
regarded by them with more enthusiasm, perhaps, than e\en 
military exploits, by which, notoriously, they are dazzled; 
and the orator who can sway them at his will is more 
applauded than the successful general. 

Such minds demand fervor, and even vehemence, in their 
speakers, and can more easily forgive a little infelicity of 
reasoning than tameness in sentiment or manner. 

Among such people, most fortunately, Henry Cla}' found 
himself when the consciousness of his power as an orator 
first flashed upon him. In the town of his residence, many 
of the citizens were highly intelligent and refined; but "the 
country people," as they were termed — those who consti- 
tuted the mass of the population — were distinguished by 
the characteristics of pioneer life: a resolute independence, 
thorough, practical common sense, the utmost frankness of 
feeling and manners, and unbounded admiration for rousing 
oratory. 

Occasions likewise favored the budding reputation of the 
young orator. Demagogism was from the first abhorrent to 
his soul. However much he might seek to work upon the 
sympathies of his susceptible audiences, he never prostituted 
his powers to artifice nor appealed to local and unworthy 
prejudices. He delighted in expatiating upon those cher- 
ished principles of freedom, for which our country had but 
just triumphantly fought. In such themes he could indulge 



HENRY CLAY. '279 

his loftiest declamation without offense to his high sense of 
honor. 

It is related of Erskine that, after his first speech, he had 
placed in his hand retaining fees from thirty eminent law- 
yers. The services of Henry Clay were now beginning to 
be considered desirable. But prominence at that Lexington 
bar was no light laurel to win. George Nicholas, John 
Breckinridge and William Murray practiced there — men 
whose names and fame were familiar to the nation. Such 
an array seemed to set competition at defiance. Clay had 
Bed from Richmond, but in fleeing from the elephant's plain 
he had plunged into the lion's jungle. 

They found in the boy, "however, a formidable competitor. 
He was bland, courteous and affable in the ordinary inter- 
course of life: in the social circle he was firm in his positions; 
but if one, taking an opposite position, became vehement or 
ultra-positive, he yielded the ground as gracefully as possi- 
ble, frequentl}' causing his friends to feel that he lacked self- 
assertion. Yet, on the field of civic strife he was as 
unyielding and invulnerable as the Rock of Gibraltar. He 
studied address and manner with the devotedness of Roscius, 
the actor, who questioned Cicero's eloquence by asserting 
that he could make a certain speech more effective by his 
pantomime than Cicero by his declamation. While Clay 
was acquiring reputation in societ}^ and as an orator with a 
pleasureable degree of rapidity, his legal practice was not so 
forward in its growth. 

His first celebrit}' as an attorne}' was acquired in the 
criminal practice; and yet he never prosecuted but one man 
— a negro, charged with killing his overseer. Him he 
brought to the gallows, but he ever after regretted it. 
His feelings forbade his being a successful prosecutor, every 



280 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

instinct of his nature was on the side of the unfortunate. 
Although a crime was atrocious and premeditated, his clem- 
ency was so great, he felt there must be a place for 
repentance and, therefore, for salvation. But his acute 
sensibilities and philanthropic heart made him highly 
eftective in a defense. 

Among his first criminal cases was the defense of a father 
and son for a murder that was cold-blooded and of the most 
aggravated character. Clay felt the force of the oppor- 
tunity, and determined to make an heroic effort. He real- 
ized that 

" There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 

So that, when the wave struck him, he gave himself to the 
current, unfurled his sails and steered for port. When 
Rufus Choate had an important case, he knew no rest. He 
pursued it with unremitting toil through the da}', and was 
haunted by it at night. He did not labor on the general 
features of the case alone ; the minutest details were ferreted 
out and mastered with a conscieiitious de\otion amounting 
to a passion. He entered his trials haggard and careworn, 
but with the settled conviction of success to sustain him, and, 
when the victory came, its tonic dispelled all the exhaustion 
of labor. So Cla}' approached this case with a devotion 
akin to worship. Success here, he felt, would be a turning- 
point in his practice, and he put in an honest bid for " gen- 
eral emploj'ment.'" 

He studied every case on the records that was. at all 
similar to the preseiit one. Fie prepared himself so that he 
could not possibly be surprised on any point that might 



HEKRY CLAY. 281 

come up. No other thought was permitted to enter his 
mind for weeks. He ate with it and slept with it. His 
whole being was rushing on in one mighty current of effort 
for the prisoners' liberty. At last the trial was called, and 
its conduct lasted live da3-s. Clay was equal to every emer- 
gency; but the evidence was overpowering. The act, done 
as it was in broad daylight, was undeniable. No conjuring 
could justif}' the deed; no palliation was possible. The 
defense was managed with consummate skill, but there were 
the stubborn facts unchanged. 

Cla}' realized that the prosecution was as well prepared 
as the defense, and saw that unless he adopted other tactics, 
all was lost. He still had a reserve in the background, in a 
thoroughly prepared speech. He arose to address the jury 
under the desperation of a forlorn hope. The breeding 
aspirations of many months were in danger of being blighted 
at a moment when he expected them to ripen into fruition. 
The anguish of what he esteemed the lost cause gave a 
pathos to his voice, a flash to his eye and a dignity to his 
mien that he never possessed before. He was bold, impas- 
sioned and tearful. You would ha\'e thought two saints in 
the prisoners' pen were being crushed under the heel of an 
iron law. Thfe jury deliberated an hour, and brought in a 
verdict of manslaughter onl}-. For an instant the people 
were amazed; then the}' burst forth, "That speech did it." 
Cla}' himself was confounded. 

His wits were at work at once. There was still a hope 
of victor}^ A breach had been made. He flew to his feet 
and moved an arrest of judgment. All day long he con- 
tended for his motion, and toward evening he was rewarded 
by securing the liberty of his clients. This well-fought bat- 
tle, with its victory, brought to him a criminal practice 



282 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

greater than his most sanguine hopes had anticipated. He 
had studied diligentl}' and long, had preferred threadbare 
clothes to ignorance and debt, had lived the life of a recluse, 
forswearing the world's joys; and now, having overcome, 
there did not lack for those who delighted in paying him 
honor. Henceforth he was established as the ''criminal's 
defendant." 

At the close of the trial his clients expressed their warm- 
est gratitude to their deliverer, promising a better life in the 
future. The corpulent little woman that one of the men 
called wife and the other mother, was unbounded in her 
expression of thanks. When the judge ordered the sheriff 
to set the prisoners free she made a dive for Clay, who was 
yet in his seat, throwing her arms around, his neck in the 
most frantic manner. He leaned forward to her embrace 
with such sweet tenderness that the crowd burst into wild 
applause. Confused, he rose up and straightened out his 
long body, which lifted the fat little lady off her feet and 
left her clinging to his neck. The crowd yelled like demons. 
Almost smothered with her kisses and his own blushes, he 
bent over with all the dignity the circumstances would per- 
mit and set his fair charge on the floor again. His honor 
lost his dignity, and, leaning back in his chair, said to the 
sheriff, "Sam, let 'em holler." 

Mr. Clay manifested great sagacity in discerning and 
turning to his advantage a technical law point involving 
doubt. Like the carefully prepared extempores of Sheridan, 
he was equipped with legal points and arguments for any 
issue that could possibly arise. 

It has been thought that INIr. Clay's success as a lawyer 
was altogether owing to his eloquence. This is far from 
the facts in the case. Petit jurors are not all fools. There 



HENRY CLAY. 28S 

are often as good minds in a jury box as among the advo- 
cates before it, unless it is a " professional " jury. Clay's 
appeals to the jur}- were of the same character as his argu- 
ments before the judges. Indeed, he spoke alike on all occa- 
sions, for he had but one style of oratory. To debar him 
froin its eagle swoop was to leave him a shorn Samson. 
Like DeQuincey, his soul must spread its wings and go to 
the same height, whether discoursing on philosophy or order- 
ing the cook to cut the mutton with the grain. The vast 
compass of his legal knowledge, drawn from his extensive 
reading and questioning, made him as thorough and efficient 
in the civil practice as he was powerful in the criminal. lie 
was not one of those attorneys who, knowing no law, when 
the case is presented, descends into the details, asking more 
questions than a homoeopathic physician of his patient. A 
brief outline was enough. His knowledge was so profound 
and complete he at once saw its relation to the established 
rules of practice, and knew whether it would be lost or won. 
He seemed to have a penchant for complicated cases — 
those where the weight of the law seemed evenly balanced 
on each side. In that early day, in Kentucky, land claims 
were frequently arbitrated. In the settlement of these he 
rendered himself very conspicuous. He really liked this 
practice more than he did the criminal, and his success in it 
was fully as eminent. It is related of him that being 
engaged in one that involved immense interests, he associ- 
ated with him a prominent lawj-er to whom he intrusted its 
management, as urgent business demanded his absence 
from court. Two daj's were occupied in discussing the 
legal points that were to govern the instructions of the court 
to the jury, on all of which his colleague was frustrated. 
Mr. Clay returned before a decision was rendered, and with- 



284- THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

•out acquainting himself with the nature of the testimon}^ 
or ascertaining the manner in which the discussion had been 
conducted, after conferring a few minutes with his associate, 
he prepared and presented in a few words the form in wliich 
he wished the instructions to be given, accompan3'ing it 
with his reasons, which were so convincing that the suit was 
terminated in his favor in less than an hour, after he re- 
entered the court room. 

Mr. Cla}' belonged to nature's aristocracy. He was a 
"born king, but his crown sat so naturally on his brow that 
men paid him reverence who never saw the insignia of his 
power, although they were lightened b}' its luster. He 
inoved in the world feeling that no man had better blood or 
more royalty than he. And yet he felt that every other 
man possessed all that he did. He recognized all mankind 
as his brethren. He held humanit}' to be of common 
parentage, and that the plastic hand of one Father molded 
us all in Eden. Constitutionally he would have rebelled 
against Darwinism. He was modest but masterly in his 
views of things. Versatility was the offspring of his wide- 
reaching effort. 

If he found his religion largely in the worship of nature, 
he recognized no fetish for a God. At once courtly and 
refined, his dignity of soul added height and moral grandeur 
to his stature. His manner of address was the same whether 
in the company of the ignorant dame or the cultivated lady 
— with the buckskinned backwoodsman or the spectacled 
D.D. He never straightened nor unbent, forgot his chivalry 
nor assumed gravity, before peasant or prince. To all and 
with all he was the same true gentleman. In this particular 
it is hard now to find his equal, unless we fall upon Hugo. 

Cla}^ was living in a country where the metal of manhood 



HEXRT CLAY. 285 

needed to be polished on all sides. The rectangular life of 
a Jefterson might possibly pass current in circumspect Vir- 
ginia, presided over, as she was, by the Episcopal parsons; 
but when he pushed into the interior of Kentuck}^ and met 
the disciples of Daniel Boone, the laced jacket of political 
stateliness was considered tawdry livery. Much as a dem- 
agogue is to be likened to the chameleon, in the presence of 
such a shrewd constituency some keen e3'e will detect the 
true color. Before it nothing can sa^"e a man from expos- 
ure, excepting to have nothing to expose. Manhood never 
flinches, though placed under the most sensitive touch-stone; 
and nature's nobleman is the only character that is flexible 
enough to bend and adapt itself to all kinds of people. 

In 1807, Mr. Clay was a candidate for the Legislature of 
Kentuck}'. One day, while on his canvassing tour, addres- 
sing a crowd, a party of riflemen, who had been practicing, 
attracted by his voice, drew near to listen. The}' were 
pleased with the oft'-hand and attractive style of his oratory, 
but considered there were other qualifications necessary to 
fit one for the legislative hall, besides talk. One of their 
number, who had evidentl}" seen much backwoods service, 
stood leaning on his rifle, regarding the young speaker with 
a fixed and most sagacious look. 

He was the Nimrod of the company, and was clad in 
buckskin breeches, hunting-shirt and coon-skin cap, with a 
visage as tanned as his bullet-pouch. At his belt hung 
knife and hatchet, and, over his breast the indispensable 
powder-horn. The countenance of this man looked as true 
as his rifle's shot or his knife's steel. When the speech was 
closed, he beckoned to Mr. Cla}-, who immediately 
approached him. " Young man,'' said he, " you want to 
go the Legislature, I see." " Wh}', }'es," replied Cla}- — 



286 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

" yes, I should like to go, since my friends have seen proper 
to put me up as a candidate before the people. I do not 
wish to be defeated." The old man straightened himself 
up, and, looking over his broad manors — the unsettled for- 
ests — he turned and said, "Are you a good shot.''" Clay 
replied that he considered himself the best in the countr}' at 
some things. " Then, you shall go the Legislature; but we 
must see you shoot." " But," said Clay, " I never shoot 
an}' rifle but my own, and that's at home." " No matter," 
said Nimrod, " here is Old Bess ; she never fails in the 
hands of a hunter. She has put a bullet through many a 
squirrel's head at a hundred yards. If }ou can shoot with 
any thing, }ou can with Old Bessy " Put up your mark, 
put up your mark," said Cla}', for he saw there was no 
escape, and he was resolved to tr}', hit or miss. The target 
was placed at eight}' yards, when, with all the coolness of 
an old marksman, he drew Old Bess to his shoulder and 
fired. The bullet pierced the buirs-e}'e — to his own com- 
plete surprise. "Oh! a chance shot! a chance shot ! " cried 
his political opponents. " lie might shoot all da}' and not 
hit it again. Let him try it over." " No; beat that, and 
I will," i-etorted Clay. No one accepted the fair offer, and 
he, willing to let well enough alone, retired from the crowd, 
bearing the glory of a " capital shot." He had done honor 
to the Kentucky weapon, and every hunter voted for him. 
He went to the Legislature by an overwhelming majority. 

He had in after-life more fame in rifle practice than he 
desired. When in Europe, as commissioner to make a 
treaty with England, at the close of the war of 1812, he 
was represented in an English paper as the man who killed 
Tecumseh, and it was furthermore gravely stated that he 



HENRY CLAY. 287 

manufactured razor-strops from the skins of the Indians he 
killed! 

Clay's genius and talents, now seen and acknowledged 
by all, had gained for him high professional honors, and 
fitted him to act a prominent part on another and more 
extensive field — that of the patriot politician. The date of 
his entrance on this field may be placed as far back as 1797, 
and it is worthy of particular remark that the first subject he 
was led to investigate on approaching it was one peculiarly 
calculated to call into exercise those prominent features of 
his character, philanthropy and patriotism. Slavery, although 
existing in its mildest form, could not and did not appear to 
him otherwise than unsightly and revolting — an evil, and 
one of great magnitude; nor did he hesitate to pronounce it 
such. To him its practical tendencies, in public and civil 
no less than in private and social life, were obviously bad. 
He saw it diffusing its baneful influences through the halls 
of legislation, and twining its sable folds around the very 
pillars of government, contaminating and withering all that 
it touched. His was not the position of an unmoved or 
speculating observer; the mightiest energies, the holiest 
impulses of his nature, were kindled within him, to arrest 
its progress. But in yielding, as he did, prompt obedience 
to those emotions, he did not rush, madman-like, impelled 
by a blind zeal, into the work, regardless of results. The 
sanguinary consequences of such a course rose up and 
stared him full in the face, with most appalling power, nor 
could he shut his eyes to the palpable fact that it would 
inevitably eventuate in the utter annihilation of those very 
interests he sought to protect. It appeared necessary, there- 
fore, to advance cautiously: to sit down, and, divested of 
all prejudice, wisely count the cost. He found it requisite 



288 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

to act the part of a skillful and experienced operator, not 
that of a conceited empiric; to have the bandage and the 
liniment ready before resorting to the scalpel and cauting- 
iron. After taking the most enlightened view of the subject, 
regarding it in all its aspects and bearings, he came to the 
conclusion that the only method to insure the safet}- of the 
body politic, and preserve inviolate the institutions upon 
which the republic was founded, was gradual disengagement. 
Hence he sought b}' every available means to secure the 
introduction of a provision to that effect, in a new constitu- 
tion then under consideration for adoption. Happy would 
it have been for Kentucky had she listened to the entreaties 
of her son in this behalf. 

Mr. Clay was now exceedingly popular. No man in his 
State could be called his rival. Opponents he had, and scores 
of them. They harassed him by da}', and pursued him 
slanderous^ through the night. To all this he gave little 
heed. True, he was worn and sickened by it, but he never 
once relaxed his studies or his aspirations. No young man 
can hope to pass to professional success unscathed by jealous 
rivals. If he would win the smiles of those who are his 
equals, he must be content to remain on their level. Sure 
as he moves beyond them one step he severs the tie that 
binds them together, and they become his enemies. If, like 
the sensitive Keats, he cowers before their criticism and 
innuendoes, rushes into despair, and dies of a broken heart, 
they will gratefully cherish his memory by garlanding his 
grave with passion flowers and poetry; but if he persists in 
obeying the star of his destiny, if he listens only to the mo- 
nitions of his own "most prophetic and oracular soul," it 
must be for man}- days with the timid countenance of faint- 



HENRY CLAY. 289 

hearted friends, the treacherous help of pretended ones, and 
in spite of the open opposition of rivals and enemies. 

To stop half wa}- is to be damned. Expectation is 
blasted, self-respect is crushed, and envy has accomplished 
its malign purpose. Many a man of good ability has been 
swept before this storm, wrecking every possibility. Just 
here is where Grant's '' unconditional surrender '' needs to 
be operated, or Bulwer's grit, or Coll3^er's "salt." If Cal- 
houn had shrunk when his school-fellows laughed at his 
Congressional aspirations, he would never have belonged to 
the immortal Triumvirate. Had Disraeli fled when the 
galleries and seats jeered him, he would never have spent a 
quarter of a century practicing " ins and onts " with 
Gladstone. If Nelson had hesitated when the sailors said, 
" What! make a captain out of that little fellow.'' " he would 
never have led the British fleet to victory. If the boy West 
had cried and quit because the cat scratched him when he 
was pulhng the hairs out of her tail to make a brush, he 
would never have been a great painter. 

If any man had reasons for faltering before the inachina- 
tions of rivals and the treacher}^ of false friends, that man 
was Henry Clay. But all such opposition onl\- increased 
his inclinations to study, and deepened his determination to 
get on. He soon passed up to the second story of achieve- 
ment, and only a few of his most implacable enemies 
pursued him thither. Once succeed in establishing ^"oursclf 
above the level of your old associates, thus passing bej'ond 
their sphere, and rivalry soon ceases. It is, also, in many 
instances a good method of converting foes into friends. 

Mr. Clay had taken so prominent a part in questions that 
had involved the interest of the entire State that he was 
chosen for the United States Senate in 1 809. He at once 



2(X) THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

engaged actively in Senatorial business. Earnestness was 
the chiet" cause of his success. His eloquence could have 
contributed no lasting prosperity if his heart had not swelled, 
at all times, with an honest desire to know and do his whole 
duty. He was a patriot of the t}'pe of Themistocles, in 
whose bosom devotion to countr}' was the ruling principle. 
We therefore see him refusing to take a position on any 
matter without giving it the gravest consideration. His 
soul was surcharged with the eternal principles which under- 
lie the Declaration and the Constitution, and whenever a 
State or national movement would not drop into place in 
the great temple without the sound of a hammer, he 
rejected it as a stone of stumbling and rock of offense. Such 
was his sagacity, never but once in his public career did he 
find need to change his opinion and advocate a measure he 
had once opposed. 

When he entered the Senate he found it discussing the 
erection of a bridge over the Potomac. Its erection was 
strongly desired by the inhabitants of Washington and 
Alexandria, and as strongly deprecated by those of George- 
town. Many efforts were made by both parties to secure 
his services in aid of their particular interests, but nothing 
definite could be ascertained respecting his views in relation 
to the bill, and he refused to commit himself by pledging 
his support or opposition to it. He was not, though, indif- 
ferent to the proposed measure, but diligentl}' employed 
himself in settling in his own mind the question of its con- 
stitutionalit}', and in deciding on its expediency. The result 
of his investigations was the conviction that it was sanctioned 
by the constitution, and a judicious measure of internal 
polic}'. He so regarded it in a speech which he made in its 
favor, by which he succeeded in producing a similar convic- 



\ 



HENRT CLAY. 291 

tion in the minds of all the members who had not pledged 
themselves to oppose it, and thus secured its passage. This 
speech, although never reported, is represented as one of his 
happiest efforts, distinguished for satire and humor, as well 
as for gravity and sound logical argument; indeed, as 
embod^-ing all the characteristics of a perfect specimen of 
eloquence. From the ground there taken, and the first time 
publich', as to what he deemed true governmental polic}-, in 
relation to internal improvement, he never afterward receded. 
With proud satisfaction may the friends of that system of 
which he has been justly styled "///e Father,'' point to this 
unparalleled example of unwavering adherence and fidelity 
to principles since demonstrated to be the only permanent 
source of our national prosperity. 

In 1811, the causes of complaint against England were 
renewed. Her officers in foreign ser\-ice omitted no oppor- 
tunity of displa}ing toward us their insolence. One of our 
vessels of war had been fired into, almost within our own 
borders. They forcibly entered our ships, and, under the 
pretext of searching for their fugitive sailors, impressed our 
seamen. According to a statement in Congress, seven thou- 
sand of our countrymen were, at the moment of the report, 
forcibly detained in her service. All remonstrance proved 
ineffectual. Lord Castlereagh treated contemptuousl}' the 
idea that England would relinquish her right of search. 

War or national servitude was inevitable. Randolph, 
Pitkin and Quincy opposed war. Randolph pleaded that 
we were unprepared for war. We were without a nav}', 
without an army, without munitions of war. Thus he met 
every effort to strengthen our weakness with vigorous oppo- 
sition. Pitkin brought all his personal influence and logic to 
bear against the war, or any bill looking to preparation for 



292 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

defense. Quincey opposed the war spirit with his unrivaled 
characterizations. Speaking of the war, he observed: 
" There is nothing in histor}- like this war since the in\'asion 
of the buccaneers. The disgrace of our armies is celestial 
glory compared to the disgrace reflected on our country by 
this invasion [the proposed invasion of Canada]; yet it is 
called a war for glory! Glory.? Yes, such glory as that of 
the tiger when he tears the bowels from the lamb, filling the 
wilderness with its savage roars; the glory of Jenghis 
Khan, without his greatness; the glory of Bonaparte. 
Far from me and mine, and far from my countr}' be such 
glory!" 

Mr. Clay replied to him in a speech of most pointed vet 
merited rebuke, and couched in language that stung like a 
scorpion. 

A correct idea of the effect produced it is impossible to 
gather from his reported speech, though in general accur- 
ately given. Look, tone, gesture, and manner contributed 
largely to its greatness — perhaps as much as the "thoughts 
that breathe and words that burn," which in one continuous 
stream fell from his eloquent lips, causing the hearts of his 
hearers to thrill alternately with pleasure and pain. It is 
represented as having been an exquisite specimen of grand 
eloquence — a felicitous blending of the beautiful, pathetic 
and sublime. He seemed to wave the enchanted wand of 
the fabled magician, now spreading peace and quiet, now 
causing the most stormy emotions to swell the hearts of 
those who listened to him. Members of both political par- 
ties — men whose patriotic souls had been sustained by his 
eloquence, and those who had been writliing and agonizing 
under his indignation, forgot their antipathies and wept 
together. 



HENRY OLAT. 293 

Mr. Cla}^ had the pleasure of seeing the bill, as advocated 
by him, pass the House, on the fourteenth of January, 1813, 
by a vote of seventy-se\-en to forty-two. On the sixteenth 
(having passed the Senate) it received the signature of the 
President; and thus was taken another and very important 
step in carrying out that system of manly and bold resist- 
ance devised and introduced by him, and which was destined 
to redress all our grievances and restore our violated rights. 

During the interval between the adjournment and re- 
assembling of Congress, Mr. Cla}' watched the progress of 
the war with the most intense interest. T///s was ihe all- 
absorbing subject of his soul^ engaging its every facult}' and 
principle; and the efforts which he made to secure its suc- 
cessful termination were as strenuous as they were unre- 
mitted. In public assemblies, in private circles, it was the 
theme on which he dwelt continually, and around which he 
twined the richest wreaths of his oratorical and colloquial 
skill. 

The histories of the Grecian and Roman republics furnish 
many instances of exalted, self-sacriticing patriotism — of 
those who under its influence met death as joyfull}' as the}' 
would have met a friend. Inspired b}' this principle we 
hear one of their bards exclaim: 

" Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." 
It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country. 
But the lofty action of Mr. Clay in connection with this his 
country's crisis, his prompt response to her cr}- for aid, his 
unwavering attachment to her cause, and his ardent devo- 
tion to her interests, present an example of patriotic love 
and zeal, which may be placed by the side of similar ones 
on the records of those nations, without the slightest f 'ar of 
disparagement — indeed, as jur^ti^ing the belief that if she 



294 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

had required a similar sacrifice, the victim would not have 
been wanting. 

Russia soon offered her interposition to bring about peace, 
which was finally accepted by the two countries. Mr. Clay, 
with Gallatin, Bayard, Adams, and Russell, acted as negotia- 
tors on the part of America; and Lord Gambler, Goul- 
bourne, and Adamos, for the British. The Commissioners 
met at Ghent, and the conference resulted greatly to the 
benefit of America. The odious right of search was relin- 
quished. The navigation of the Mississippi was denied to 
English vessels. The privilege of fishing in British waters 
was not withdrawn. The impertinent claim to extend a 
supervision over our Indian tribes was abandoned. And so 
well were the principal rights which were contended for 
established, that America never since has had occasion for 
those complaints which drove her reluctantly into conflict 
with her haught}' foe 

After concluding negotiations, Mr. Clay proceeded to 
Paris. He delayed, as yet, to go to England; for during 
his residence at Ghent, he had learned with chagrin of the 
capture of Washington. But while he remained undecided, 
the intelligence came of the battle of New Orleans. " Now," 
he exclaimed, " I can go to England without mortification." 

The results of the war, so highly satisfactory to American 
pride, carried a significance far beyond such emotions. It 
decisively stamped our arm}' and navy as the equal of Eng- 
land's, and therefore the peer of any in the world. We 
were not simply an independent nationality, but were an 
established power among the nations. To lead the country 
in the war, control her negotiations for peace, and seat her 
on the lofty basis of equality with the "established powers," 
while yet an infant nation, was an achievement of statesman- 



HENRY CLAY. 295 

ship that must rank side by 'side with the deeds of him who 
was " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of 
his countrymen." 

Mr. Clay did not appreciate at that time the salutary 
results that were to accrue to his country from these labors. 
He only saw the imminent danger threatening the nation's 
commerce and prosperity. This calamity, as a patriot, he 
sought to avert, endeavoring to build a bulwark against it 
for all coming time. Devotion to his country's interests 
alone filled his breast. Had he been actuated b}^ ambition 
or lust of personal glory, no such service could have been 
accomplished. But when he labored under* the imperious 
dictates of necessity, duty and honor, it nerved his arm and 
impelled him to heroism of conduct that the mere politician 
or glory-seeker can never know. 

Mr. Madison acknowledged the merit and abilities of Mr. 
Clay, by offering him, upon his return from Europe, after 
the treaty of peace, the situation of Minister to Russia, and 
again, upon the occurrence of a vacancy in his Cabinet, the 
Secretaryship of War. Thus honors poured in upon the 
rising statesman from every quarter. Success had smiled 
upon him from the first. By none of the artifices of the 
demagogue; by no special solicitation of any kind, he had 
risen to such estimation, that honors, instead of being sought 
by him, might almost be said to have come to him soliciting 
acceptance. 

He declined the offers of the Executive, and re-entered 
the halls of legislation to battle for internal improvements 
and home industry. Political sentiment, tiom the day on 
which the Constitution was adopted, had been divided as to 
the right which that instrument confers to carry on systems 
of improvement within the different States at the expense of 



296 THE GENIUS OB' INDUSTIiY. 

the Federal Government. Mr. Clay brought all his vast 
resources to the support of the constitutional right and duty 
of the government to control impro\ements of a general 
interest in the States. He had the satisfaction of seeing the 
bill pass. The wholesome growth that has resulted to the 
States and nation therefrom proves it to be a wise and gen- 
erous measure. 

He also advocated home industry. He was so intensely 
American that he could not tolerate the idea of importing 
any thing from foreign countries. His plan was to foster 
our own manufactures and encourage invention until there 
would be no need of foreign goods. It is a remarkable fact 
that the first two subjects which demanded and secured his 
aid on entering Congress were those of primary importance 
to the welfare of the republic — subjects subsequently shown 
in the unillusive light of experience to be not only as inti- 
mately connected with private as with public prosperity, but 
as constituting the very lungs of Liberty herself. 

Now the increasing prospect of war ser\ed in some 
degree to arouse the nation Irom that lethargic state of 
indifference in which it had so long slumbered. At least it 
was deemed advisable to anticipate such an event b)' making 
provision for the materials usually needed in such an emer- 
gency. Accordingly, a bill was introduced to appropriate 
a sum of money to purchase cordage sail-cloths, and the 
ordinary munitions of war, and so amended as to give pre- 
ference to articles of domestic growth and manufacture, 
provided the interests of the nation should not suffer 
thereby. Mr. Llo^-d, a Senator from Massachusetts, moved 
to strike out the amendment granting the preference, and 
supported his motion by a long and powerful speech. A 
sreneral and interesting discussion ensued, in which the 



HENRY CLAY. 297 

policy of extending direct protection by the Government to 
domestic manufactures was considered. Mr. Clay was 
among the tirst to avow himself decidedly in favor of the 
policy, and by his speech made at that time proved both its 
expediency and wisdom. 

Mr. Clay was brilliant in illustration, and always made an 
effort to demonstrate, as far as possible, the correctness of 
his positions. Especially did he make a vigorous attempt 
at this soon after the above speech. A Western vine 
grower had presented him with some specimen bottles of 
American wine. So pleased was he with this evidence that 
we need not go abroad even for luxuries, that on going to 
Washington, he carried a bottle or two with him to aston- 
ish the anti - American • system men with the American 
vintage. It was produced by him at a public table, duly 
prefaced with a brief " protective speech." Upon tasting it, 
his guests, in spite of their politeness, looked awry and con- 
fused. Mr. Cla}' hastened to put it to his own lips, and 
found it was — Lexington whisk}'. Some of the hands 
about the house had drunk the wine and refilled the bottles 
with something decidedly American, but still quite foreign 
ito the purpose. 

The next important measure in which we find Mr. Clay 
engaged is the famous " Missouri Compromise." This was 
not a struggle between this and other governments, but the 
more deadly evil of civil dissension. I"or the first time he 
was demanded to pacify fraternal strife. He had earned 
proud laurels on foreign fields, but he was now to take the 
helm of state when every sailor quaked, and every piece of 
timber trembled — to guide her safely through the storm. 
In 1787, while the States were united, as yet, simply by ar- 
ticles of confederation, an ordinance was unanimously agreed 



298 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

to for the government of the territory northwest of the 
Ohio. This ordinance, among other provisions declared 
that " there shall be neither slavery nor involuntar}' serv- 
itude in the said territor}-. otherwise than the punishment of 
crimes whereof the party shall be dul}- convicted." This 
provision had been strictly adhered to up to the date of the 
application of Missouri for admission. 

Prior to 1820, when the Missouri question was settled, 
ten States had been added to the original thirteen. Among 
these were Vermont (separated from New York) and 
Maine (from Massachusetts) — States in which slavery was 
not mentioned ; besides Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, from the 
territor}' north and west of the Ohio. By the constitutions of 
these last three States, slavery was expressly excluded, in 
accordance with the terms of the ordinance above men- 
tioned. To balance these five free States, Tennessee (from 
North Carolina) Kentucky (from Virginia) Louisiana (from 
the Louisiana purchase) and Mississippi and Alabama 
(from lands ceded to the United States by Georgia), had 
been admitted into the Union. In these States slavery had 
not been forbidden, as they formed portions of territory 
formerly held by slave States; and occupied, so far as settled, 
by slaveholders. 

The State of Missouri was formed out of a part of the 
Louisiana purchase; and it was contended that the new 
State should follow the precedents of the other States which 
had been created out of slave territory. Louisiana had 
slaves, and as INIissouri was another portion of the same 
purchase, it was demanded that she should be received on 
the same footing as a slaveholding State. The argument 
had weight, independent of any question as to slaver}-, upon 
its merits or demerits. If any State under the Constitution 



HENRY CLAY. 299 

and the precedents established was entitled to hold slaves, 
Missouri had that right; since the French province of 
Louisiana, of which her territory formed a part, recognized 
slavery. 

Missouri's petition to become a State was forced, in the 
war of debate that arose, to go over until the next session 
of Congress. The whole country became aroused over the 
question, and party feeling ran higher than ever before. Mr. 
Clay labored heroically to reconcile the painful differences. 
Just at this time financial embarrassments compelled him to 
resign his office as Speaker of the House, and betake him- 
self again to the practice of his profession. But the 
threatening attitude of the contending parties did not permit 
him to remain away long. Leaving behind what had now 
become the lesser concerns of private interest, he resumed 
his seat in Congress. 

His undoubted patriotism, his tried integrity, his unrivaled 
popularity, pointed him out as the only man in the nation 
who was* able to bridge the chasm. Measure after measure 
was proposed, but to no avail. Excitement ran higher, and 
party lines were more distinctly drawn. Finally Mr. Clay 
succeeded in getting a joint committee appointed from the 
two Houses to consider the case, before which he introduced 
his famous " Missouri Compromise," which was that Mis- 
souri should be admitted as a slave State, with a proviso 
that in all the territory ceded to the United States by 
France, north of latitude thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, 
slavery shall not exist; the limits of Missouri being ex- 
cepted. 

The report when laid before the House was adopted by a 
vote of eighty-seven to eighty-one. Missouri acquiesced in 
it, and thus, at last, was settled the question which threat- 



300 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

ened at one time to rend asunder the Union and kindle the 
flames of civil war. It was in this great conflict that Mr. 
Clay received the name of the Great Pacificator. 

Mr. Chn's wit was as vigorous as his eloquence, and, 
like Sheridan's humor, it often ser\"ed to parry what logic 
and declamation could not have met. He never sought to 
hide a mistake, but fi-ankly confessed every failure, which 
restored to him the confidence of those who were retiring 
from his support. He always oiled the blunder with his pleas- 
antry so that you actually thought more of the man than 
before. On one occasion he \ oted for the " Compensation 
bill," which was to increase the pay of Congressmen to 
fifteen hundred dollars per session. This of course gave 
the demagogues an opportunity to fire the minds of the 
people against the " stall-fed aristocrat." In the next can- 
vass Mr. Clay met an old hunter who had previously been 
his devoted friend, but now opposed him on the ground of 
the Compensation bill. " Have you a good rifle, my friend.'' " 
asked Mr. Clay. "Yes." " Does it ever flash.? " "Once 
only." " What did you do with it; throw it awa}'.'* " '' No, 
I picked the flint, tried it again, and brought down the 
game." " Have I ever flashed but on the Compensation 
bill.'' " " No." " Will you throw me away.? " " No! no! " 
quickly replied the hunter, nearl}- o\erwhelmed by his 
enthusiastic feelings, " / ivill pick the flint atid try you 
again ! " Ever afterward he was the unwavering friend of 
Mr. Clay. 

His wit was not like Chamfort's, epigrammatic and 
pointed at the follies of the time. He was too intensely 
earnest for this. Neither was it like Dr. Johnson's, which 
never failed to hit its object, but when the bomb broke it 
fluns fii"e on friend and foe alike. He was neither morose 



HENRY CLAT. 301 

nor sour enough for this. Rather, Hke Chatham, the humor 
came bubbling up from a soul jolly as a tar's, yet sober and 
chivalrous as Achilles. While it cut deep, it seldom failed 
to elicit a smile, even from his victim. 

On one occasion, the late General Alexander Smyth, of 
Virginia, a gentleman of unusual ability and erudition, had 
spoken a long time, fatiguing and vexing the House with 
the length and number of his quotations and citations ot 
authorities, and justified his unbearable prolixity by saying 
to Mr. Clay, who was seated near him, " Ton, sir, speak lor 
the present generation, but / speak for posterity." " Yes," 
he immediately replied, " and 3'ou seem resolved to speak 
until the arrival of your audience! " 

During his long occupancy of the Speaker's chair, he was 
characterized by an eminent spirit of justice. His decisions 
were seldom appealed from, and when they were, they were 
almost invariably sustained by the House. He seemed to 
act as though he were conscious that his country stood at 
his side, with her piercing eyes fixed full upon him, reading 
the secrets of his heart — as though he heard her voice 
sounding in his ears, imploring and beseeching him to guard 
and watch faithfully over those interests which she had so 
unreservedly placed in his hands, and whenever he lifted his 
arm, or opened his mouth, it seemed to be for the single 
purpose of executing her revealed ivill. 

About this time Mr. Cla}' became a candidate for the 
Presidency. He was universall}' believed to be the choice 
of the people, but a combination of circumstances threw 
the election into the House, and defeated his aspirations. 
His own hopes, crushed and bleeding, could not chill the 
ardor of his intense patriotism. Like Demosthenes, his 
country was above party, and for her prosperity he was 



302 THE GESICS OF IS DUST RY. 

willing to be sacrificed. During the canvass he sent for a 
friend to ad\"ise with him on a certain measure. The friend, 
guarding Mr. Clay's chances above all else, suggested that 
it might be unfortunate for his Presidential prospects. • I 
sent for you." said Mr. Clay, ''to advise with me whether 
this would be right. Sir. I vjould rather be right than be 
President." 

The tariff of 1824, which was levied with the most con- 
scientious regard for the good of the nation, and the 
encouragement of home industry, proved in its practical 
application to be a grievous burden. While it protected 
New England, it sapped the very life out of the industries 
of the South and West: it fostered a powerful moneyed 
interest in one section of the countr}- at the expense of the 
other. Legislative redress appeared impossible in the face 
of the dominant party, and more extreme measures were 
threatened. 

South Carolina especially denounced the law as unconsti- 
tutional and odious; threatened to disregard it, and entered 
upon a course which bore the appearance of open rebellion. 

General Jackson was at the head of the Government. 
He detested the law almost as much as South Carolina, but 
since it was a law. he determined that, at all hazards, it 
should be obeyed. Inflammatory meetings were held at 
Charleston. Open resistance to the ofBcers of the Govern- 
ment was recommended. Materials for war were collected. 
Meanwhile United States troops were sent to the disaffected 
State. Jackson, it was believed, would bombard at the least 
provocation the city of Charleston, and hang as traitors 
Hayne. Calhoun and others of the leaders. Intense excite- 
ment pervaded the countr}'. 

Randolph, broken down with age and yet more bv disease. 



HENRT CLAY. 303 

was aroused bv the sounds of coming strife. " Lifted into 
his carriage like an infant," sa3S his biographer, " he went 
from county to county, and spoke with a power that efTect- 
ually aroused the slumbering multitudes. In the course 
of his speech at Buckingham he is reported to have said: 
' Gentlemen, I am filled with the most gloomy apprehensions 
for the fate of the Union. I can not express to you how 
deeply I am penetrated with a sense of the danger which, 
at this moment, threatens its existence. If Madison filled 
the Executi\-e chair, he might be bullied into some compro- 
mise. If Monroe was in power, he might be coaxed into 
some adjustment of this difficulty. But Jackson is obstinate, 
headstrong, and fond of fight. I fear matters must come 
to an open rupture. If so, this Union is gone I ' Then 
pausing for near a minute, raising his finger in that emphatic 
manner so peculiar to his action as a speaker, and seerfiing. 
as it were, to breathe more freely, he continued: " There is 
one man, and one man only, who can save this Union — that 
man is Henry Clay. I know he has the power. I believe 
he will be found to have the patriotism and firmness equal 
to the occasion.' "' 

Mr. Randolph was not mistaken. Mr. Clay proved to 
have alike the "• power," '• the patriotism " and '• the firm- 
ness." At this juncture he once more evinced how great 
and unselfish was his patriotism. In the language of one 
who was not a political friend, " With parental fondness he 
cherished his American system; with unyielding pertinacity 
contended for it to the last extremity; but, when it became 
a question between that and the integrity of the Union; he 
did not hesitate; like Abraham, he was readv to sacrifice 
his own offspring on the altar of his country, and to see the 



304 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

fond idols he had cherished perish, one by one, before his 
Hngering eyes." 

He introduced a bill which received the name of the 
Compromise Tariti' Bill. From it, for the sake of his coun- 
try's peace, he excluded most of those features which were 
odious to the South, however fondly they had been cherished 
by himself. His sacrifice was not unavailing. Thus, once 
more, devotion to country triumphed over the dangers of 
partisanship. 

Mr. Clay was now growing old, and resigned his seat in 
the Senate, for his health was rapidly failing. But the 
alarum of internal dissension was again sounded, and the 
worn and dying veteran could not rest in peace at Ashland. 
Once more he buckled on his armor and rushed to the front. 
This time it was to effect the great " Compromise of 1850." 
The vigor and enthusiasm of youth no longer attend him. 
The hopes and buoyancy of other days have fled. He goes 
not to that Senate now in the strength and pride of 1806. 
He goes wrapped in bandages, racked with pain, lifted like 
an infant, so frail that even the prairie's breeze threatens to 
blow his life away. 

A scene, that American Senate chamber — clothed in no 
gorgeous draper}', shrouded in no superstitious awe or 
ancient reverence for hereditary power; but to a reflecting 
American mind more full of interest, of dignity, and of 
grandeur than any spot on this broad earth not made holy 
by religion's consecrating seal. See him as he enters there 
tremblingl}', but hopefully, upon the last, most momentous, 
perhaps most doubtful conflict of his life. Many a gay 
tournament has been more dazzling to the eye of fancy, 
more gorgeous and imposing in the display of jewels and 
cloth of gold, in the sound of heralds' trumpets, in the grand 



HENRY CLAY. 305 

arra}' of princely beauty and of royal pride. Many a battle- 
field has trembled beneath a more ostentatious parade 
of human power, and its conquerors have been crowned with 
laurels, honored with triumphs, and " apotheosized " amid 
the demigods of history; but to the thoughtful, hopeful, 
philanthropic student of the annals of his race, never was 
there a conflict in which such dangers were threatened, such 
hopes imperiled, or the hero of which deserved a warmer 
gratitude, a nobler triumph, or a prouder monument. 

Generals are tried by examining the campaigns they have 
lost' or won, and statesmen by viewing the transactions in 
which they have been engaged. Hamilton would have been 
unknown to us had there been no Constitution to be created ; 
as Brutus would have died in obscurity had there been no 
Csesar to be slain. So, when histor}' shall relate the strug- 
gles which preceded and the dangers which were averted 
by the Missouri compromise, the tariff compromise of 1832, 
and the adjustment of 1850, the same pages will record 
the genius, the eloquence, and the patriotism of Henry 
Clay. 

Like the pine, which sometimes springs up amid the rocks 
on the mountain side, with scarcely a crevice in which to fix 
its. roots, or soil to nourish them, but which, nevertheless, 
overtops all the trees of the surrounding forest, Henry Clay, 
by his own inherent self-sustaining energy 'and genius, rose 
to an altitude of fame almost unequaled in the age in which 
he lived. He- was born in the wilds of a new empire, with- 
out patronage or wealth; At an age when our 3-oung men 
are usually advanced to the higher schools of learning, he 
turned his steps to the AVest, provided only with the rudi- 
ments of an English education, and amid the rude collisions 
of a border-life, matured a character whose highest exhibi- 



306 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

tiohs were destined to mark eras in his country's history. 
Beginning on the frontiers of American civilization, the 
orphan boy, supported only by the consciousness of his own 
powers, and by the confidence of the people, surmounted 
all the barriers of adverse fortune, and won a glorious name 
in the annals of his country. Let the generous youth, fired 
with honorable ambition, remember that the American sys- 
tem of government offers on every hand bounties to merit. 
If, like Clay, orphanage, obscurity, poverty, shall oppress 
him; yet if, like Clay, he feels the Promethean spark within, 
let him remember that his country, like a generous mother, 
extends her arms to welcome and to cherish every one of 
her children whose genius and worth may promote her pros- 
perity or increase her renown. 

To convey a clear idea of Mr. Clay's eloquence is impos- 
sible. Like that of Chatham and Patrick Henry, it must 
li\'e onl}' in tradition. In his published speeches the reader 
searches in ^■ain for the spell which bound his hearers. Like 
that of every great orator, it was not words alone; it was 
the fullness of the man — his gestures, his matchless voice, 
his dilating form, his attitudes, and the glances of his 
enkindled eye. These are things which are beyond the 
power of the reporter; and yet these are the things in which 
reposed the secret of his power. The eloquence of Webster 
was the majestic, roar of a strong and stead}- blast pealing 
through the forest ; but that of Clay was the tone of a god- 
like instrument, sometimes visited by an angel touch, and 
swept anon by all the fury of the raging elements. He 
never, perhaps, in any parliamentary effort, came up to the 
mark of Webster's repl_y to Hayne, but on all ordinary 
occasions there could be no comparison. While Webster 
was almost uniformly dull, Clay was always animated and 



HENRT CLAY. 307 

interesting. His sensibilities were keen and powerful, easil}' 
mo^•ed, and impetuous as an ocean storm. 

Webster, on the other hand was, on ordinary occasions, 
cold and phlegmatic. And yet Clay to produce an effect 
never descended to vulgarity. He was always above dema- 
gogism and the low tricks of the politician. He despised 
such methods to obtain success, although the most ambiti- 
ous of men. He was a proud-spirited, high-toned gentle- 
man, and his oratory never revealed him in any other light. 

It has been the custom of his biographers to represent 
him as an "orator born," and knowing all things by intui- 
tion. Every man who is a success in a calling has a strong 
predilection for that calling, and Mr. Clay's natural bias was 
in favor of public speaking. But he also brought into 
requisition every element of his being to the one aim. He 
was a tireless student, and not until failing health and 
advancing age bore heavily upon him did he forego his habit 
of self-culture. He studied eloquence and style even in 
ordinar}' conversation, and courted the society of persons 
noted for grace of manner and power of expression, that he 
might educate himself in this art. The fascination of his 
manner and conversation was almost equal to that of his 
eloquence. 

Mr. Clay was ever willing to confess his industry, and in 
his talks to 3'oung men freely told them of his rising at early 
dawn, and burning the candle until midnight in his search 
aft^r knowledge. In an oration before the Ballston school, 
speaking of his own attainments as a speaker, he said : 

" I owe my success in life to one single fact, viz. : that at 
the age of twenty-seven I commenced, and continued for 
years, the process of dail}' reading and speaking upon the 
contents of some historical or scientific book. These off- 



308 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

hand efforts were made sometimes in a corn-tield, at others 
in the forest, and not unfrequently in some distant barn, witli 
the horse and ox for my auditors. It is to this early prac- 
tice of the great art of all arts that I am indebted for the 
primary and leading impulses that stimulated me forward, 
and have shaped and molded my entire subsequent destin}'. 
Improve, then, young gentlemen, the superior advantages 
you here enjo}'. Let not a da}' pass without exercising j^our 
powers of speech. There is no power like that of oratory. 
Caesar controlled men b)' exciting their fears; Cicero by 
captivating their affections and swa}'ing their passions. The 
influence of the one perished with its author; that of the 
other continues to this da}'." 

Mr. Cla}' had two aims in life: To master his profession 
and stand at the head of the Lexington bar ; the other, after 
he had become a statesman, was to be President of the 
United States. The first he achieved; the last he never 
reached. He labored as only the man of conscientious 
ambition can labor, to do his whole duty. Therefore, in 
seasons of great national peril, his de^'otion to country was; 
so much greater than to self that he forgot ambition in seek- 
ing the country's good. On one occasion, acting under its 
influence, he said to Mr. Grundy, " Tell General Jackson 
that if he will sign that bill [the Land bill], I will pledge 
m}'self to retire from Congress, and never enter public life 
a'rainy Such self immolating political purity demands 
reverence. My country., viy country., seems to have been 
the constant subject of his thoughts and wishes. This 
attribute gave to his commanding eloquence its invincible 
power, and was the solid foundation on which he reared the 
temple of his immortal fame. 

Mr. Clay died in the seventy-sixth year of his age, June 



HENRY CLAY. 309 

29, 1852. When Kentucky proposed the vain memorial of 
a statue, Thomas F. Marshall, one of her most gifted sons, 
gave utterance to the lollowing lofty tribute : . 

" The friends of Mr. Clay meditate the construction of a 
monument, to mark the spot where repose the remains of 
that frail tenement which once held his fiery soul. It will 
be honorable to them, and will form a graceful ornament to 
the green woods which surround the city of which he had 
himself been so long the living ornament; but it will be use- 
less to him or his fame. He trustee! neither himself nor his 
fame to mechanical hands or perishable materials. '■Exegil 
momnnentum pere?ijiius cere.'' They may lay their pedestals 
of granite; they may rear their polished columns till they 
pierce and flout the skies; the}' may cover their marble 
pillars all over with the blazonry of his deeds, the trophies 
of his triumphant genius, and surmount them with images 
of his form wrought by the cunningest hands; it matters not 
— he is not there. The prisoned eagle has burst the bars, 
and soared away from strife, and conflict, and calumny. He 
is not dead — he lives. I mean not the life eternal in yon 
other world of which religion teaches; but here on earth he 
lives the life which men call fame, that life the hope of 
which forms the solace of high ambition, which cheers and 
sustains the brave and wise and good, the champions of truth 
and human-kind, through all their labors — that life is his 
be}'ond all chance or change, growing, expansive, quench- 
less as time and human memory. He needs no statue — he 
desired none. It was the image of his soul he wished to 
perpetuate, and he has stamped it in himself in lines of flame 
upon the souls of his countrymen. Not all the marbles of 
Carrara, fashioned by the chisel of Angelo into the mimicry 
of breathing life, could convey to the senses a likeness so 



310 THE GENIUS OF INDUS j\.i' 

perfect of himself as that which he has left upon the minds 
of men. He carved his own statue, he built his own monu- 
ment. In youth he laid the base, broad as his whole country, 
that it might well sustain the mighty structure he had 
designed. He labored heroically through life on the colos- 
sal shaft. In 1850, the last year of the first half of the nine- 
teenth century, he prepared the healing measures which bear 
his name, as the capital, well proportioned and in perfect 
keeping with the now finished column, crowned his work, 
saw that it was good and durable, sprang to its lofty and 
commanding summit, and, gazing from that lone height upon 
a horizon which embraced all coming time, with eternity for 
his background, and the ej'es of the whole world riveted upon 
his solitary figure, consented there and thus to die," 





s" -<iAo 








'Gay. 



-^|cplJL7^H^.]|^4- 



Learning by study must be won, 
'Twas ne'er entailed from sire to son. 



Youth it instructs, old age delights, 

Adorns prosperity, and when 
Of adverse fate we feel the blights, 

'Twill comfort us and solace then. 

— Watson. 

Is there one whom difficulties dishearten — who bends to the storm' He 
ill do little. Is there one who -«?/ conquer? That kind of man never fails. 
-yoliii Hunter. 

I freely told you all the wealth I had ran in my veins. — Shakspeare. 

He that has light within his own clear breast 
May sit in the center, and enjoy bright day. 

—Milton. 





F ever there is a time when one needs an old head 
on his shoulders it is when he stands on the thres- 
hold of manhood. If ever he needs the experience 
of an octogenarian, it is in the years around twenty-one. 
Here he is, with the wide world before him, a business to 
choose, a standard to erect, foundations to lay, and health 
to care for. A step in the wrong direction may strand him 
forever. A few years, now squandered away in riotous 
living, may leave sorry space for amendment. The' 
customary solace of friends about the " wild oats and set- 
tling down by-and-by,'' can only serve in countenancing 
one's profiigac}', and hurrying him on the road to ruin. 
Don't take 3'our sportive days at such distance from }Our 
destiny. Wait until you have made the trip. They will 
be better enjoyed when you have earned a title to them b}' 
protracted and honest toil. John Ruskin savs: " In general 
I have no patience with people who talk about ' the thought- 
lessness of youth' indulgently; I had infinitely rather hear 
of thoughtless old age and the indulgence due to that. 
When a man has done his work, and nothing can any way 
be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, and 



314 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

jest with his fate, if he will ; but what excuse can you find 
for willfulness of thought at the very time when every crisis 
of fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thouo-htless, 
when all the happiness of his home forever depends on the 
chances or the passions of an hour! A youth thoughtless, 
when the career of all his days depends on the opportunity 
of the moment ! A }-outh thoughtless, when his e\-ery action 
is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagi- 
nation a fountain of life or death! Be thoughtless m a7iy 
after 3-ears rather than now; though, indeed, there is only 
one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless — his 
death-bed. Nothing should ever be left to be done there." 

We have known instances wherein men have made a little 
profitable excitement b}' attention to superfcial details. 
Doctors have sometimes driven themselves into notoriety 
with a pair of fast horses. Merchants, by their oozy, gloz- 
ing words, have succeeded in selling large bills of goods. 
Lawyers have laughed juries into subjection with their wit- 
ticisms. Orators have melted audiences down by the trill 
of an O or the rolling of an R. And yet- one of two things 
is true: Either the excitement died down like fire made 
from pine shavings, or else there were other qualifications 
behind, that gave substance to the success. 

There must be something more than tinsel to clothe the 
man in who would secrete power in his outfit. Business 
calls for brains more than ever before. Clerkships nowadays 
to be worth anything must be filled by men of gift and 
staunch accomplishments. Otherwise they are nominal, en- 
dowing their owners with a legacy of poverty. There is 
something more needed than to be able to measure off ten 
yards of calico, light the chandeliers, and dangle the heels 
over the counter. The man who takes into his concep- 



CULTURE. 315 

tions the mere contents of a modern dry goods store — to 
say nothing of furnishing and managing it — is master not 
only of a knowledge of merchandise; he is an adept in 
nomenclature, manufacture, commercial industries, transpor- 
tation, and the geography of the world. And although all 
this knowledge may not be needed of him, yet to possess it 
indicates that he is somewhat conscious of such a thing as 
progress, and that he proposes to be progressive, too. 

The same may be said of other hand-labor. Fifty years 
ago men were paid for strength of muscle. That was a 
gala-da}' for the giants. Now, muscle is at a discount, 
while skilled intellect alid dexterous fingers are in demand. 
Engines and machines for field and shop, and for all sorts of 
business, glut the market. Thus is toil shortened and sur- 
plus hurnan flesh discharged. The man who does not now 
bring mechanical genius to his assistance must suffer loss. 
No man can expect with a mortar and pestle to make head- 
wa}' against a modern flouring mill. Thought is the only 
thing that can win, and every pursuit is calling for men of 
mind. 

There- is something practical, as well as something that 
charms, about culture. " It is not a small thing," says 
Beecher, "for a man to be able to make his hands light by 
■supplementing them with his head. The advantage which 
intelligence gives a man is very great. It often increases 
one's mere physical ability full one half. Active thought, or 
quickness in the use of the mind, is very important in teaching 
us how to use our hands rightly in every possible relation 
and situation in life. The use of the head abridges the labor 
of the hands. There is no drudgery, there is no mechanical 
routine, there is no minuteness of fiinction, that is not 
advantaged by education. If a man has nothing to do but 



316 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

to turn a grindstone, he had better be educated; if a man 
has nothing to do but to stick pins on a paper, he had better 
be educated; if he has to sweep the streets, he had better be 
educated. It makes no difference what you do, you will do 
it better if you are educated. An intelligent man knows 
how to bring knowledge to bear upon whatever he has to 
do. It is a mistake to suppose that a stupid man makes a 
better laborer than one who is intelligent. If I wanted a 
man to drain iny farm, or merely to throw the dirt out from 
a ditch, I would not get a stupid drudge if I could help it. 
In tiines when armies have to pass through great hardships, 
it is the stupid soldiers that break dt)wn quickest, while the 
men of intelligence, who have mental resources, hold out 
longest. It is a common saying that blood will always tell 
in horses; I know that intelligence will tell in men." 

The "Captains of Industry," in every mine and factory 
are the intelligent workmen. Intelligence makes their 
touch- more sensitive, and gives greater mobility to their 
hands. There is a weaving-room in Massachusetts filled 
with girls above the average in character and intelligence, 
and there is one girl among them who has been highly 
educated. Though length of arm and strength of muscle 
are advantages in weaving, and though this girl is short and 
small, she always weaves the greatest number of pieces in 
the room, and consequently draws the largest pay at the 
end of each month. 

The intelligent English travelers find nothing in the 
United States that excites their wonder and admiration so 
much as the manufacturing towns of New England. That 
factory girls should play on the piano and sustain a credita- 
ble magazine by their own contributions ; that their residences 
should be clean, commodious, and elegant; that factory-men 



CULTURE. 317 

should be intelligent gentlemen, well-read in literature, and 
totally unacquainted with beer and its inspirations, have 
been for many years the crowning marvels of America to 
all travelers of culture and observation. Franklin, Sherman, 
and many of our brightest lights, emerged from the work- 
shops, and have enriched the world through the genius of 
their learning as fully as the profoundest collegian of any 
age. An obscure life is sometimes unavoidable, but igno- 
rance is a voluntary misfortune, if not a crime. " A wise 
man," says Seneca, "is provided for occurrences of any 
kind: the good he manages, the bad he vanquishes; in pros- 
perity he betrays no presumption, and in adversity he feels, 
no despondency." 

A scientific man can dig a better post-hole than a dunce,, 
and an intelligent man will make a better gardener than one 
who never read a book. It is said that- in the earl}^ days of 
San Francisco the most popular waiter at one of the hotels 
was an ex-Congressman; not because he had been a Con- 
gressman, for it was not then known, but because he knew 
men, could detect wants, and possessed discretion. The 
country over, the hired hand that is kept the whole year 
round, at good wages, is the one that reads the newspapers, 
dresses up, and goes to church. Knowledge is not the 
monopoly of the professions nor the privilege of wealth; it 
is the prerogative of the day-laborer and the mechanic; it is: 
the inheritance of every man if he will go up and possess 
the land. ■ The most exacting trade furnishes enough leisure 
five minutes in a year to permit 3'ou to become conversant 
with the history of the United States. Put in the parings 
of each day, the mere rinds of it, for ten years, and 3'ou will 
have become a scholar. 

These crevices of time, filled with rapid reading, to be 



318 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRT. 

meditated on while at work, will make one proficient in lit- 
erature, and afford ample time for the current news. After 
a tew years you will concede that brain pays a journeyman 
as well as a professor. Beside the increased ability to dis- 
patch work and the additional demand it creates for your 
services, it aftords dignity of character, and a happiness that 
is superior to every misfortune. Dr. INIason Good translated 
Lucretius while riding in his carriage in the streets of Lon- 
don, going his rounds among his patients. ' Dr. Darwin 
composed nearly all his works in the same wa}-, writing 
down his thoughts on little scraps of paper which he carried 
about with him for the purpose. Hale wrote his " Contem- 
plations " while traveling on a circuit. Dr. Burne}' learned 
French and Italian while traveling on horseback from one 
music pupil to another. Kirke White learned Greek while 
walking to and from a lawj'er's office. Daguesseau, one 
of the great Chancellors of France, wrote a bulky volume 
during the moments he waited for dinner. Madame de 
Genlis composed several of her charming volumes while 
waiting for the Princess to whom she gave her daily lessons, 
and Jeremy Bentham considered it a calamity to lose one 
moment of time. 

That is a solemn admonition on the dial at All Souls, 
Oxford, England: '■'■ Pertiitit et inipufanfur'''' — the hours 
perish and are laid to our charge. Melancthon noted down 
the time lost b}' him, that it might reanimate his energies. 
An Italian scholar put over his door an inscription intimat- 
ing that whoever remained there should join in his labors. 
" We are afraid," said some visitors to Baxter, " that we 
break in upon your time." " To be sure you do," replied 
the sturdy divine. Elihu Burritt attributed his first success 
in self-improvement, not to genius, which he disclaimed, but 



CULTURE. 319 

to the employment of his odd moments. While working 
and earning his living as a blacksmith he mastered some 
eighteen ancient and modern languages and twenty-two 
European dialects. " Those who have been acquainted 
with my character fron:i my youth up," said a self-made 
man, " will give me credit for sincerity when I say that it 
never entered into my head to blazon forth any acquisition 
of my own. * * * All that I have accomplished, or expect 
or hope to accomplish, has been or will be by that plodding, 
patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the 
ant-heap — particle by particle, thought by thought, fact by 
fact. And if ever I was actuated by ambition, its highest 
and warmest aspiration reached no further than the hope to 
set before the young men of my country an example in 
employing those invaluable fragments of time called ' odd 
moments.' " 

Do }'ou say you are not able to work this thing out by 
yourself .'' — that you must attend lectures and enter classes .-^ 
This is all very nice if it can be done, but if not, what then.^ 
Shall you shrivel up and blow away because there is no 
university in your community.'' What are books, and men, 
and nature for, if not to aid yon.'' Can you go a mile into 
the world without running across a legion of instructors.'* 

"Think you, 'mid all tjiis mighty sum 
Of things forever speaking, 
That nothing of itself will come, 
But we must still be seeking? " 

If 3'ou should sit, to-day, before a professor, could he teach 
you more valuable things than you can learn, with open eyes 
and ears, before business or in the midst of society and the 
churches.'' 

Rittenhouse, the astronomer, first calculated eclipses on 



320 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

his plow-handle. Wilkie, the artist, used a burned stick and. 
the barn door in lieu of pencil and canvas. Watt made his 
first model of a condensing steam engine out of an old 
syringe. A bit of pasteboard enabled Newton to unfold the 
composition of light and the- origin of colors. Giffbrd worked 
his first problem in mathematics, when a cobbler's appren- 
tice, on scraps of leather which he beat smooth for the pur- 
pose. Franklin drew the lightning from the clouds with a 
key fastened to a kite-string; and a distinguished Eng- 
lish scholar, while yet a gardener's boy, being asked how he 
had contrived to read " Newton's Principia " in Latin, 
replied: " One needs only to know the letters of the alpha- 
bet in order to learn every thing else he wishes." ■ 

If the broad halls of opportunity are closed to you, they 
may not be closed forever. If you would work your way 
into the society of the learned, " after the shop is closed, 
climb a lamp-post, holding on with one hand and reading 
with the other." If you can not stand side by side with 
Governor Bishop and Secretar}' Schurz, like them you can 
at any rate take the strokes of the world courageously in 
the days of your humiliation. Many a slave, before the war, 
learned his letters, and put them together into syllables and 
words, simply from overhearing the recitations of his mas- 
ter's children. And man}' an American has learned to read 
by studying the signs that were painted on the fences he 
was passing on his way to town. Indeed, the men who' 
formed and fashioned our Western civilization were neither 
blessed with skillful guides nor cursed with worn-out routes. 
It has been theirs to blaze the forest as they went. 

A thorough knowledge of 3-our business, and a general 
knowledge of the world, will oftener bring success than an 
inheritance. Chesterfield was not a man of astounding ' 



CULTURE. 32t 

parts, yet his magnificent culture made him one of the great- 
est men of his day. lie said of one of his speeches, dehv- 
ered before the Lords, and with whicli tlie}' were highly 
pleased, that he knew nothing of the matter, for it was 
scientific. It turned out that the Lords did not understand 
it either, but he assumed to know so much, and addressed 
them as if they knew all about it, that they declared they 
thoroughly understood the case from his statement. His 
knowledge of men, and of their prevailing shallowness, 
together with his own smattering of science, enabled him to 
form sentences that sounded as though they came from a 
master of the subject. The salesman at Claflin's who tells 
customers all about how the stripes are put into silks, and 
describes the silkworms and cocoons, sells more silk than 
any other clerk in America. 

To possess knowledge is a general ambition with men. 
But by the time one reaches forty his resolution is all scat- 
tered to the winds, 

"And, like an insubstantial pageant, faded, 
Leaves not a wrack behind." 

"Time! time!" it is cried; "we have not time." It is not 
time that is needed. Every man has time enough, no 
matter how great a toiler he may be. It is a right royal 
determination that is wanting — a spirit like Elihu Burritt's, 
that prompts him to work like a horse at his trade, and like 
Demosthenes at his studies. There are many men who 
would perform vast works " if " there were no obstacles in 
the way. Almost every man tells his friends what he could 
have attained to "if" the occasion had been granted him. 
Every boy can see the dazzling pinnacle, and could reach it 
" if" he only had a chance. Chances are not equal to all, 



322 THE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

it is true, but he who stumbles over an ''if" will never find 
a chance. 

You must cover the distance between 3'ou and your more 
fortunate rival by such heroic effort as he is not likely to 
put forth, so as never to let him know there was ever an 
"if" in the way. So rapid are the revolutions of fortune's 
wheel, that circumstances are of no abiding value. The 
most favorable surroundings of to-day may be utterly 
changed to-morrow, leaving their victim stripped. Ralston 
revels in millions this morning, his children the envy of San 
Francisco; this evening, a suicide, he floats on the water, . 
and they are without support. Byron, born of a defaulting, 
drunken father and vicious mother, for a brief period is the 
heir of poverty; but the index turns, and he inherits his 
uncle's title and vast estates. Tenterden is forced to leave 
his place in the cathedral choir for lack of ability; after many 
other failures, however, he puts his shoulder to the wheel, 
pushes out, and dies a Lord Chancellor. 

There is no permanent hope for a man except as it starts 
from within. The scale of circumstance may go up or down, 
to elevate or to sink, but that which takes root and rise 
within the soil of one's own nature may be reckoned upon 
as measurably secure. Archimedes said if he could find a 
place for his fulcrum he could upset the world. Within the 
sphere of morals such a leverage can be found. It is in the 
consciousness of increasing capacities, which we hold as the 
gift of God. Whether one will proceed, then, with the 
Archimedean problem, on its moral merits, is left to his own 
volition. For, in no thing is he so much the arbiter of his 
fortune as in attaining unto the measure of perfect manhood. 

If you have a preference for literature, as a means of 
getting on, you do not need many books. Some men gorge 



CULTURE. 323 

upon Rollin and Gibbon, Lingard and Froude, Mosheim, 
Mommsen, Macaulay and Motley, until their minds become 
more voluminous in their contents than luminous in exercise. 
They suppose if they can stow away a cart-load of chapters 
and paragraphs they will become wise. This may do for a 
man of the stature of Carlyle or Hamilton. They could 
walk erect, and turn a hand-spring under the pressure of 
forty thousand volumes, but on a common brain it is easy 
to heap a burden that will make one stagger worse than a 
ten-year-old boy beneath the pack of a Hungarian peddler. 
It is not the quantity of books one reads, nor the large 
amount of information, drawn from every source, that helps; 
it is first the quality, and next the ability to apply to practi- 
cal use. Some men are more learned from reading one 
book than others are after reading a hundred. Indeed, as 
Disraeli says, "the man of one book is dangerous." One 
need have great book-capacity to compete with some. Na- 
poleon read books as he conquered foes, before breakfast. 
Charles James Fox read with lightning-like rapidity, remem- 
bering every good sentence in an entire volume. All that 
Sir William Hamilton pretended to do was " to rip the 
bowels out of a book." Carlyle sucked the marrow from 
an encyclopedia in two hours. 

Of all the impotencies, the impotency of reading is the 
most worthless and despicable. One we know wades 
through the pages like a mad bull in a stream, closes the 
book with a pompous dash, and turns to you with an air of 
triumph as though he had conquered the Bodleian Librar}'. 
"Another volume swallowed," cries he; and so it is, only 
it lies on the brain as undigested as would a grindstone if 
introduced into the stomach. He is as full as a boa afler 
gorging an ox, and as comatose ; George III after the 



32i THE GEyiUS OF INDL\STRY. 

disposal of a dozen dumplings could not be more leaden 
than he. 

Libraries are magnetic. Like the fabulous lodestone 
rock, which, with the wind's speed, drew the fated ship to 
itself, only to dash it to pieces in the contact, so do vast 
shelves of books draw men in. You can not read all the 
books published. Don't try it. Culture does not consist in 
such omnivorous folly. Take up standard authors, leaving 
new ones to those who have time to read and experience to 
test them. You will tind that even the authorities are not 
equal to themselves, page by page. It seems to be a neces- 
sity that they should not be. Too much sweet surfeits. 
Select from them what you need and is good, file it awa}', 
and work it over into rib-bones for 3our own structure, or 
sink it into the blood as you do iron. Read books like Rob- 
ertson, who waded into a library for the same purpose one 
takes a bath, that he might be purified and invigorated. 

Bacon said, " Some books are to be tasted, others swal- 
lowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Seeing 
that if the printed pages in our libraries, and the newspaper 
and magazine editions for one year were stretched out, they 
would " paper " the globe itself, how careful ought we to 
be in selecting, so that we can utilize everything in our 
calling. When you find a really valuable book, then, such 
as Shakspeare, Macaulay's Essays, Gibbon, or the Iliad, be 
like Hackett, " who fastened his eyes on a book as if it were 
a will making him heir to a million." 

What share have the philosophers and sentimentalists 
with the apostles.'' One hardly dare shake hands with 
Emerson and say, " Prophet! " especially while he is under 
the raking fire of Joseph Cook. And yet we all feel that 
there is a class of writers from whom we are making up a 



CULTURE. 325 

life we shall some day hate to lose. We can find no sensi- 
ble man who does not recommend them. One time when I 
thought of studying theology I picked up " Shedd's Homi- 
letics " and read a chapter on intellectual culture. He tells 
ministers to lay a basis for eternity by constantly studying 
Homer, Shakspeare, and Plato. It does not appear that we 
go to these for absolute revelations. Width of thought, 
warmth of heart, and unbounded humanity are the proper- 
ties we carry away. All their peccadilloes seem to sieve 
out. Or does the good blood in one take up nothing but 
the necessary elements.' We are afraid of the analogy, 
and remark that it is not in the filth of a word so much as 
in the passion of a sentiment that we may look for breakers. 
One can pick words enough out of Shakspeare to make a 
pocket dictionary, any one of which we should blush to put 
on these pages. And yet we all read over them without 
any other feeling than that of repulsion, while Byron and 
Rousseau, whose indecent words are very rare indeed, wile 
3-00 on with their hot sentiment to a point that disgraces, 
and down goes the book in alarm. 

Don't cast a book aside simply because some one sees a 
bugbear in the term " Fiction." What is there that is not 
in some sense fictitious.'' Would you discard Dickens, 
Scott, Holmes, Holland, Eggleston, McDonald, Eliot, Stowe, 
and " Schoenberg-Cotta," to say nothing of our Lord's 
parables? There is but one moral rule for reading. Read 
every thing that makes 3'ou better and nothing that makes 
you worse, or leaves you where you were. Don't cast a 
book aside because it opposes your views. Be a man. 
Face it. Interrogate it. Let it interrogate 3-ou. Perchance 
it is you who are wrong. Perhaps it. Antagonize. Let 
it provoke you to thought. Often this is the best and 



326 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

quickest wa}- to start the torpid brain and arrive at a well- 
defined angle of truth. And in the name of literature and 
common sense, have nothing to do with expurgated editions. 
If your modesty is such that you can not read a book as 
originally written, leave it alone. What are books for unless 
to teach us of men -and their histories — of the world and its 
contents just as it is? Don't be prudish on this point, 
allowing some wiseacre to go in your ad\ance, culling and 
scraping. Take counsel of good friends as to the propriety 
of choosing such and such authors, and so protect 3'ourself. 
Chatterton used to say that " men had arms long enough 
to reach anything if they chose to be at the trouble." When 
Sir Francis Horner was giving his rules lor the cultivation 
of the mind, he placed great stress upon the habit of con- 
tinuous application to one subject, for the sake of mastering 
it thoroughly. He confined himself to a few books and 
resisted with great firmness the habit of " desultory read- 
ing."' We are all the time seeking short cuts to knowledge. 
We have French in twelve lessons; a sophomore expects to 
harangue a Greek mob in his second term; and after nine 
months at astronomy we have forgotten more than Ferguson 
knew after he had slept on the highlands in his sheep-skin 
for ten ^ears. As soon as we have heard a few lectures in 
chemistry, taken laughing gas, witnessed the dissection of a 
human bod}-, walked up and down thi-ough a library, stam- 
mered through a dozen Greek and Latin works, fingered a 
few specimen " rocks," botanized a dozen plants, and taught 
a class or two in mathematics during the professor's absence, 
we stretch out, and swell, and pass out into the world, 
having traversed, as we suppose, the whole curriculum of 
knowledge. In this way we get a smattering of everything, 



CULTURE. 327 

establishing the paradox that what is better than nothing is 
good for nothing. 

The general who divides a thousand men into ten differ- 
ent advancing columns only scatters them on the field to 
find defeat; whereas, if he concentrates them into one solid 
wedge and drives them into the enemy's center, he bursts it 
open and wins the day. Ignatius Loyola said: " He who 
does well one work at a time does more than all." "I 
resolved," said Lord St. Leonards, " when beginning to 
read law, to make every thing I acquired perfectly m}* own, 
and never to go to a second thing until I had entirely 
accomplished the first. Many of my competitors read more 
in a day than I read in a week; but at the end of twelve 
months my knowledge was as fresh as on the day it was 
acquired, while theirs had glided away from recollection." 
There is a point at which the mind's saturating power 
reaches a maximum, and to attempt to go be3'ond this is 
useless. Abernethy used to compare the mind to a bucket 
that would hold just so much, and if you put anything more 
in it had the effect of pushing something else out. 

The facility with which one accomplishes a work is not 
always an index to his ultimate success. In many cases 
unusual facility becomes a most detrimental element. John 
Randolph was one of the most brilliant speakers in all the 
galaxy of orators, but, being an extreme partisan, his 
speeches were surfeited with sarcasm and personal denuncia- 
tion, which dazzled at the time and gained a wonderful 
passing fame, but there were no " constitutional " efforts, 
and another generation is almost forgetting his splendid 
powers. 

Benjamin Constant was one of the most gifted of intel- 
lectual Frenchmen, but blase at twenty. His life was a 



32S THE GENIUS OF INDUSTIIY. 

prolonged wail instead of a harvest oi results. He had the 
fluency of Chief Justice Marshall in conversation, and his 
facile pen discussed religion, history, politics and science 
without effort, and with inconceivable rapidity. He cher- 
ished the ambition of writing books " which the world 
would not willingly let die." But he accomplished his 
transcendental themes with such ease that he came to 
despise all labor and eventually mocked all virtue. He 
frequented the gaming-tables while preparing his work on 
religion, and carried on a disreputable intrigue while writing 
his " Adolphe." He effected much, but early victory with- 
out struggle dissipated a genius as great as Voltaire's, and 
sent him to his grave over an airy pathway of brilliant 
emptiness, his last years being useless and miserable. 
Coleridge greatly resembled the inconstant Frenchman in 
that he was unusually gifted, but barren of results. From 
the buddings of his early genius his friends expected a gen- 
erous career, but after having projected some fort}' thousand 
treatises he died, leaving the world heir to a mass of 
fragments. 

Charles James Fox used to say he had more hope for the 
man who failed and then went on in spite of his failure, than 
from the buoyant career of the successful. " It is all ver}' 
well," said he, " to tell me that a young man has distin- 
guished himself by a brilliant first speech. He ma}' go on, or 
he may be satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a 
young man who has not succeeded at first and nevertheless 
has gone on, and I will back that young man to do better 
than the most of those who have succeeded at the first 
trial." One talented and promising member of the English 
Parliament, whose maiden speech was an astonishingly bril- 



CULTURE. 329 

liant effort, never made a second ; and he is known to history 
as " Single-speech Hamilton." 

A man of true metal, like John Philpot Curran, is ener- 
gized by failure, and it often happens to such a man that he 
discovers what ivill do by finding out what will not do. 
Torricelli, like the man who '' bucks " against the " tiger " 
successfully, redoubled his energies after each failure, and in 
the end was always conqueror. Insurance companies get 
new business by announcing their losses ; and medical science 
will never advance rapidly until her professional men have 
the courage to publish their failures. Watt, the engineer, 
said the thing most wanted in mechanics was a history of 
failures. Sir Humphrey Davy, on examining a dexterously 
manipulated experiment, thanked God that he was not a 
dexterous manipulator; "for the most important of my 
discoveries," said he, " have been suggested to me by 
failures." "Rossini," said Beethoven, ''had in him the 
stuff to have made a good musician if he had only, when a 
bo}', been flogged. But he was spoiled by the facility with 
which he produced." Burns truthfully said, 

" Though losses and crosses 
Be lessons right severe, 
There's wit there, you'll get there, 
You'll find no other where." 

Youths sometimes wail over the ad\ersity that drives them 
to a trade before they have acquired even a common-school 
education. While the fate is a hard one, and is to be 
deplored, }-et if this lashing does not arouse all their dormant 
powers, it is questionable if the smoother path would be of 
any real advantage. "It is only a weak man whom the 
wind deprives of his cloak; a man of average strength is 
more in danger of losing it when assailed by the too genial 



330 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

sun." William Cobbett's account of how he learned gram- 
mar serves to show the power of adversity to deepen the 
determination to accomplish a loved work. " I learned 
grammar," said he, "when I was a private soldier on the pay 
of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth or that of my 
guard-bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my 
book-case; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing 
table; and the task did not demand anything like a year of 
my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in win- 
ter-time it was rarely that I could get any evening light but 
liliat of the fire, and only my turn even of that. And if I, 
under such circumstances, and without parent or friend to 
advise or encourage me, accomplished this undertaking, 
what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor, 
however pressed with business, or however circumstanced 
as to room or other conveniences } To buy a pen or a sheet 
of paper I was compelled to forego some portion of food, 
though in a state of half-starvation. I had no moment of 
time that I could call my own; and I had to read and write 
amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling and brawling 
of at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and 
that, too, in the hours of their freedom from all control. 
Think not lightly of the farthing that I had to give, now and 
then, for ink, pen or paper! That farthing was, alas! a 
great sum to me! I was as tall as I am now; I had great 
health and great exercise. The whole of the money, not 
expended for us at market, was two-pence a week for each 
man. I remember, and well I may! that on one occasion I, 
after all necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shifts 
to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the 
purchase of a red herring in the morning; but, when I pulled 
off my clothes at night, so hungry then as to be hardly able 



CULTURE. 331 

to endure life, I found that I had lost my halfpennj'! I hur- 
ried my head under the miserable sheet and rug and cried 
like a child! And again I say, if I, under circumstances 
like these, could encounter and overcome this task, is there, 
can there be, in the whole world, a youth to find an excuse 
for the non-performance? 

The school of difficult}' makes more men than titled pro- 
fessors. Its history would be but a record of all the great 
and good things that have been accomplished b}' men. It 
is probable the world would never have heard of Franklin, 
Stephenson and Newton if they had not been stung along 
their road by adversity. Difficulties voluntarily imposed 
fail to have the quickening power of natural or uncontrol- 
able circumstances. Don't plunge yourself into difficulty 
that you may catch inspiration in getting out, else you may 
be like the young writer who longed to paint DeQuincey's 
pandemonium of the opium-damned, and, taking one of the 
weird man's doses to give him imagination, he never 
caught the inspiration, for he never recovered from the dose. 

The highway of success, where all the labor of culture 
rests on self, is steep to climb, and puts to the proof the 
energies of the man who would reach the summit. But you 
will soon learn that obstacles are to be overcome b}' grap- 
pling with them; that "the nettle feels soft as silk when it 
is boldly grasped;" and the most effective help toward 
realizing your object is the lofty conviction that you will 
succeed. Edmiind Burke has happily said, " Difficulty is a 
severe instructor set over us by the supreme ordinance of a 
Parent who knows us better than we know ourselves, as He 
loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens 
our nerves, and sharpens our skill: our antagonist is thus 
our helper." 



332 THE GEHnUS OF INDUSTRT. 

A cultured man is ahva}- ready with his point, and makes 
it. He alvvaj's knows what to sa}', when to sa}^ it, and when 
to stop. 1 le never travels in a roundabout course. He has a 
more practical aim before him than simply to fill up the time. 
He does not deal in fringe-work, tiowers or persiflage, but 
leaves these to be dealt out by the effeminate fools who deck 
themselves merely to strut. Culture is not constantly shelving 
off on to the stars of hyperbole. It does not catch up the 
nomenclature and m3'tholog3' of Greece and pour them in 
incessant showers over the heads of a palled audience, but 
it catches the Homeric fire, and burning it over in the cru- 
cible of a painstaking brain, it enkindles those about it. 

Culture prunes away all excesses, and thus throws vitality 
into the stem of action. It puts one in possession of pure 
power. It sees a barricade looming up, and strikes it down 
on the spot. It seizes the gates of Gaza, bears them out of 
reach, and at the same time boldl}' tra\-erses tlie citadel. It 
makes minute-men. It enriches one with all the resources 
of art and invention. It shapes and strengthens tlie life of 
its owner, so that, let him be situated as he may, the serenity 
that he displays indicates the power, in repose, he possesses. 

Guard well your hours, and guard your character. Seek 
the society of 3'our superiors ; drink deep at the fountains of 
knowledge; direct the wisdom you acquire to worthy ends; 
center all your powers upon the problem of your destiny; 
bring yourself up to the loftiest point of excellence access- 
ible to you; so that, at the close of life's travail, if compelled, 
with Morton, to exclaim, "I am dying! I am worn out!" 
you may at least be able to say, with the eccentric Richter, 
" I have made as much out of myself as could be made out 
of the stuftV 



^M'^^^ 



\% ^^<?a'^AA^i<i^ 





Who noble ends by nobie means attains, 
Or, failing, snniles in exile or in chains. 
Like good Aurelius, let him reign or bleed. 
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed. 

—Pope. 

Patient of toil; serene amidst alarms- inflexible in faith; invincible In arms. 




Im%^ \ ut^fklh 




AMES A. GARFIELD was born in Cuyahoga 
County, Ohio, on November 19th, 1831. His 
father, Abram Garfield, owned a small tract of land 
near the village of Orange. A fire had been raging in the 
forest surrounding the Garfield cabin, and the father, to save 
his fences and twenty acres of wheat, had been fighting its 
flames all night. With the danger over, worn out and o\er- 
heated, he sat in the doorway to rest. The breezes wafted 
over the saved fields brought death on their wings. Abram 
Garfield, seized with a chill, sank rapidly into death. Feel- 
ing that he could live no longer, he called his wife to his 
bedside and said, " I am going to leave you, Eliza. I have 
planted four saplings in these woods, and I must now leave 
them to your care." Then he looked out of his window 
over his field toward the rising sun, called his oxen b}- name, 
turned upon his side and died. Overwhelmed with the sud- 
denness of her great calamity, the mother stood in her deso- 
late home with four children and death. 

Two days after, a few friends came home with her from 
the funeral, and advised that the children be given out to be 
raised. The little farm was encumbered with a debt, and 
onlv a few acres of the land was " cleared." But the mother 



336 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

refused to part from her children, and with tlieir infanc}', 
and a mortgage on the farm, she began the struggle for a 
living. Ten years followed, crowded with toil and want, 
but the children were kept together, and the debt on the 
place was paid. The widow was wedded to her family and 
surrendered her whole service to their protection and rear- 
ing. Schools were limited in their vicinity, but she was 
educated, and her husband, a studious man, had provided 
many books for the house. The long winter evenings were 
spent before the log fire in a home school, and in reading 
the various books that would interest her pupils. 

James, the youngest member of the family, was more 
interested in the studies than the other children. Too young 
to care for orators and statesmen, warriors were his especial 
admiration. Chief among these were the Indian heroes. 
He had all the trees in the orchard named after his favorites, 
the largest tree receiving the name of his noblest chief, 
Tecumseh. The older son, Thomas, with the aid of a hired 
man, worked the farm, the two girls assisting their mother, 
while James, who was now twelve )'ears of age, was looked 
to as the general roustabout. He was good natured, of 
extraordinary strength and size for his jears, and appeared 
capable of doing an}' kind of odd jobs. He had a turn for 
tools, and getting possession of a saw, a hammer and a shav- 
ing knife, he put the doors, and chairs, and whole house in 
repairs. Thomas said, "James will surely be a carpenter 
some day and build houses." Building workmen were 
scarce in that early da}^, and contractors were anxious to 
get rough helpers. James proved himself capable and trusty, 
and the people of Orange soon began to engage the young 
workman on his own account. They said he was a "great 
lubber, but a hard worker, and a might}' good boy to help 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 337 

his mother." By the time he had reached the age of fifteen, 
his services were in constant demand, and as far as the time 
could be spared fi-om the farm he was in town at work. 
The family's expenses were not large, and the extra labor 
of the youngest boy was proving a source of surplus revenue. 

His brother and sisters had ceased with older years to 
care for study, but age added to the appetite of James. 
The day's toil was exceedingly severe when he failed to 
read an hour from some book in the evening. Books of 
adventure, and the freebooters' exploits, fascinated him. 
"The Pirates Own Book " was to him a source of ceaseless 
delight. When other books had been read once they were 
laid aside; not so with this; other books might grow old, 
but when he wanted something fresh and restful, he would 
bivouac with the pirates for an evening. He was full of 
dreams of exploits, and entertained the family with visions 
of his proposed achievements. 

He was about ten years old when he read the " Life of 
Napoleon," and informed his mother that when he got to 
be a man he was going to be a soldier, and whip people as 
Napoleon did. The literature of the youth has much to do 
in forming the character of the man. If blood-curdling 
adventures of long-haired heroes are permitted to consume 
the reading hours of a child, the best results need not be 
expected from the development of his mind. The heroes 
of the early years, permitted to stay through the maturing 
years, are generally assimilated into the character of the 
worshiper, and he becomes an imitation of his ideal. 

The young Garfield, possessed of a broad and active mind, 
having a touch of poetry in its make-up, was well calculated 
to be influenced by stories of daring and lives of romance. 
The careful mother viewed the tendency with apprehension, 



338 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY 

and tried to restrain his growing love for adventure, and yet 
not curb his boyish enthusiasm. With as deft a move of 
diplomacy as ever Talleyrand or Franklin employed, she 
turned his mind from the freebooters to the "Life of Wash- 
ington," and held up the father of his country as an exam- 
ple; she left room for the play of his venturous imagination, 
but shaped all its exploits to deeds of honor and sacrifice 
for patriotism. Once settled in the right channel the mother 
was willing to let his restless nature flow on. But his char- 
acter appeared to be like some mountain streams, always in 
a freshet, and never gave any knowledge of which way the 
channel would turn next. 

When James was eleven years of age he became inter- 
ested in the debates and literary exercises which were often 
held in winter evenings at the school house. It is said, as a 
critic, he was dreaded by the older boys and by some of the 
old men. The ibllowing winter, through his uncle's influence, 
a lyceum was organized in Orange, and here the young 
critic ventured his first speech. The humorous phase of a 
subject always attracted him. The subject for discussion in 
one of the first debates was, " Resolved, that navigation is 
of superior importance to some other branch of human 
industr}'." The young orator "supposed a case," where a 
meal of victuals awaited a hungry, drunken man, but he 
coukl not get to them. "Now," said the speaker, "that 
man is too drunk to navigate himself. He will have no 
supper. Now of what use are all the beans, potatoes, 
sausages and doughnuts to a man who can't navigate.^" 
That speech was conclusive, and by a unanimous ^"ote it was 
seriousl}' declared that it was of the highest importance 
that men be able " to navigate." The interest in the 
debates increased, and the }'oung disputant, with a quickened 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 339 

desire for reading, speedily exhausted the Hbrary at home 
and searched the neighborhood and drew upon his distant 
relatives for books and papers. He put his soul into the 
work and looked eagerly forward to each debate with 
increasing interest. In less than two years he became the 
principal debater with the old men. He became so enthused 
with speaking that the lyceum nights failed to afford him 
all the exercise he desired. He accordingly repaired to a 
high ledge of broken rocks in the woods not far from his 
home, where one shaft of rock rose considerably above its 
neighbors. From the top of that rock James would deliver 
to the rocks and trees his burning addresses. He called 
that rock his pulpit; and never, in sacred desk or in halls of 
national councils, did he find a place where there seemed to 
him such necessity for dignity, for grammatical accuracy, or 
for stirring illustration as on the forest rostrum among the 
aged maples. 

No amount of study in after years will ever produce the 
beneficial results of a proper training in the developing 
years; there voice, style of delivery, and methods of 
thought are potent factors in influencing the unfolding 
powers. Even a limited drill here, in these requirements of a 
speaker, is readily taken and assimilated by nature. All 
his powers are thus natural, and he is never liable to the 
faults of the elocutionist. Mr. Beecher attributes his success 
as a speaker, in a large measure, to the persistent drill he 
passed through during his school days. He was a member 
of every lyceum within reach of his home and prepared 
himself for the discussions with much more energy than he 
manifested for his recitations. He soon recognized the 
value of a "good voice," and made the college campus 
ring and home hideous with his aspirated quality and 



340 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

explosive orotund. He was not afraid if the neighbors did 
hear him. Every day in his room he delivered an impromptu 
address upon some subject with which he was familiar. 
That speech was characterized by all the earnestness and 
fire that marked his efforts in the. society of debaters. 
When an effort springs out of a desire to seize an oppor- 
tunity for display of one's powers there is usually an absence 
of that realism which is essential to distinguished success. 

Valuable oratorical training is not confined to a few 
elocutionary schools in the cities. These doubtless are of 
much profit to their pupils, but a finished delivery alone 
does not constitute the whole of eloquence. Training makes, 
an actor, but never an orator. No one ever saw an actor 
who was also a great orator. The fewest number of the 
great speakers have ever received any art training. Up to 
a certain degree an elocutionary course is beneficial. It has 
injured more than it has ever helped. The Boston school 
of orator}' has graduated some men who recite magnificentl}', 
but Massachusetts has graduated her orators in the district 
schools and country debating clubs. 

The soul of eloquence must be in the man, as it was in 
Clay and Henry. Knowledge gives it material to work 
with, and enthusiasm adorns it with that witchery and 
fascination, that splendor and conviction, that carries the 
hearer captive. Patrick Henry's first speech sparkled with 
that indefinable charm which mere cultivation never 
possesses. A mind that pours forth its broad and generous 
thought in the untrammeled freedom of nature never fails to 
impress its hearers, however much of grace and art there 
may be lacking in pose and gesture. The voice of Beacons- 
field was never pleasant; none knew this better than himself, 
so he never relied on it for his effect. He gave himself to 



w l^t^ 






^^^■i^-LX- 



I 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 311 

the study of his theme, and never spoke until he had mas- 
tered its ever}' detail; then, bent on a conquest, he assailed 
the subject to win. Spurgeon, the great preacher of 
London, has a commanding and direct delivery which no 
man not his identical could use. He speaks with limited 
preparation, from a store-house full of information. His 
thoughts pour on to the audience so natural and soulful 
that no one ever considers the delivery. They think onl}- 
of what is being said. The school of oratory which young 
Garfield was now attending was the same one in which all 
the great masters had taken their tutelage. 

When about fifteen 3'ears old, in the course of his trade, 
he was assisting in building an addition to a house. The 
owner of the house, whose business was that of a " black 
Salter," noticed the peculiar activit}' and ingenuity displayed 
by James in his work, and took a liking to him. Needing 
such a person he oftered him his board and fourteen dollars 
a month to sta}- with him and help in the saltery. The 
offer was accepted. In this business he succeeded well, and 
was expected h\ his employer to make a first class salter. 
The process of leaching ashes and extracting the salts, by 
boiling the liquid, was not a pleasant labor, but he stood by 
his contract faithfully, working often until late at night, and 
always black with ashes and soot. The work grew dis- 
tasteful to him, not so much the labor as the outlook of the 
employment. Larger schemes were revolving in his brain 
than a life of boiling salts. He had obtained a copy of 
"Jack Halyard," and a life on the sea once more opened 
before him. The story of Nelson and Trafalgar, and the 
like men and things, began to take shape in his thought as 
the central facts of history. He read these tales of the sea 
with growing aspirations, and while in this brittle state of 



342 THE GENIUS OF IXDUSTRT. 

mind chose a provocation on the part of his employer and 
quit his service. 

The passion for the sea was at its height, but home and 
mother w^ere to be considered. That tireless guardian had 
time and again expressed her longing that he should love 
books and become an educated man, and take a place 
among men of character and intellect. The struggle for 
life on the farm had not yet become easy, and his absence 
wrould be felt. Out of employment and restless, and with- 
out work, he decided to accept a contract as a wood-chopper. 
A boy in years, he had the strength of a man. Of a hardy 
race, with extraordinary physical powers, he felt no hesi- 
tancy in undertaking a man's work at any manual labor. 
Twenty-five cords of wood were rapidly cut for seven dol- 
lars. The timber in which he was chopping was on the 
lake shore, near Cleveland, where he saw the vessels passing 
every hour. His interest in the sea increased with every 
fresh sail. At harvest time he went home, and when the 
gi-ain was all safely stored he announced to his mother his 
intention to go to sea at once. It was a cruel blow to her 
hopes, but the firm resolve of the good-hearted corsair 
would brook no pleadings. With the last good-bye uttered,, 
he walked to Cleveland. His extravagant imagination had 
pictured sailors and sea captains as Eastern people paint the 
" noble red man," with a bearing and a character akin to 
the gods. A vessel was in port, and ascending the gang- 
plank he stepped on deck with a joyful heart. 

" Where is the captain of the ship.'' " he asked of several 
rough looking men at work among the ropes. 

The sailors made no answer, but one of their number 
made a motion indicating the captain was below. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 343 

Suddenly the captain appeared at the hatchway almost 
too drunk to walk. 

"I would like to speak to the captain," said James to the 
drunken man. 

The captain was annoyed because his appearance had 
failed to indicate his position. He fired a volley of oaths at 
the inquiring stranger, who essa3-ing to make known his 
desire to go to . sea, was met with another storm of curses, 
and joined in a chorus by the derisive laughter of the sailors. 

The boy, astounded and confused, beat a hasty retreat. 
The interview was a revelation to him. The dreams of 
seafaring grandeur were crushed by an oath. His aspira- 
tions had received such a terrible shock he at once decided 
he had been as near a sailor as he ever wished to be. 

There seemed to be nothing left but to return home. 
Pride interposed; he had just left home, overruling the objec- 
tions of the entire famil}'; he had left home, too, with con- 
siderable ostentation, and great promises of what he would 
do, and now to return before his mother's tears were scarcely 
dried, and that, too, because a drunken captain had cursed 
him, he could never do. He must find employment else- 
where; a mother's training may often be relied on when 
her pleadings have failed. His mother's moral teachings 
had been on the highest plane of gentility and pure chivalr3\ 
When the bo}' stood for the first time face to face with 
brutal domination and coarse breeding, his nature instinc- 
tively shrank from the contact; his feelings were uncontrol- 
lable and drove him from the scene. 

The earnest devotion to books, the energy with which he 
worked on the farm and in the forest, and the love for dis- 
tinction that might not be cherished by a high honor, all 
seemed to unite in the young man and form a peculiar and 



344 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

paradoxical character. The stalwart youth was restlessly 
knocking at the door of life, but which of her various occu- 
pations he would accept was hid from his view. lie 
possessed the contradictory tendencies of three callings — 
sailor, carpenter and preacher. The pretty fable, by which 
the Duchess of Orleans illustrated the character of her son, 
the Regent, might, with little change, be applied to Garfield. 
All the fairies save one had been bidden to his cradle. All 
the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had 
bestowed nobility, another genius, another eloquence. The 
malignant, who had been unin\-itcd, came last, and unable 
to reverse what her sisters had done to their favorite, had 
mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the character, 
understanding, and person of 3'oung Garfield there was a 
strange union of opposite extremes. He had a large amount 
of common sense, great force of character, and much apti- 
tude at stud}-. If he could be directed into the right 
channel he would achieve a creditable showing in life. 

Lord Byron, eminently dissimilar from the 'developments 
in Garfield's character, was gifted with this strange admix- 
ture of contradictor}' qualities. His essayist says: "He 
was born to all that men co\'et and admire, but in every one 
of these eminent ad\antages which he possessed over others 
was mingled something of misery and debasement. He 
was sprung from a house ancient indeed, and noble, but 
degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies 
which had attained a scandalous publicity. The kinsman 
whom he succeeded had died poor. The }'oung peer had 
great intellectual powers, yet there was an unsound part in his 
mind. He had naturall}' a generous and feeling heart, but 
his temper was wayward and irritable. He had a head 
which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 3i5 

which the beggars in the streets mimicked. Distinguished 
at once by the strength and by the weakness of his intellect, 
affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord and a handsome crip- 
ple, he required, if ever man required, the firmest and most 
judicious training. The poem which he published on his 
return from his travels at the age of twenty-four was 
extolled until the young author found himself on the highest 
pinnacle of literary fame with Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, 
and a crowd of other distinguished writers beneath his feet. 
He received the acclamations of the whole nation, the 
applause of applauded men, the love of lovely women. All 
this world and all the glory of it were at once offered to a 
3'outh to whom nature had given violent passions, and whom 
education had never taught to control them. Anxiety, 
exertion, exposure, and those fatal stimulants which had 
become indispensable to him, soon stretched him on a sick 
bed, in a strange land, among strange faces, without one 
human being that he loved near him. There, at thirty-six, 
the most celebrated Englishman of the nineteenth century 
closed his brilliant and miserable career." 

The wa}'ward and restless youth of Garfield gave pre- 
monitions of an unhapp}' future. Unacquainted with the 
demands of a man's own nature for a definite end in life, 
and untaught to know the virtue of rectitude, B3'ron 
clouded his path with excess and inconstancy that in a few 
years rendered him an outcast and forever crushed his proud 
spirit. Such natures, filled with the potenc}' for great 
achievements, are in youth beset with great imaginings of 
deeds to be performed. Romance and adventure lead the 
procession. A dexterous hand is needed to guide them into 
conflicts worthy of their steel. Garfield was blessed with 



3i6 THE GENIUS OF INDUS TUT. 

what- Byron had not; a devoted mother, the impress of 
whose training never left her boy. 

Having beaten a retreat from the lake, James was con- 
fronted with the necessity for immediate emplo}-ment. He 
was destitute of money. He had a relati\-e, Amos Letcher^ 
who was the commander of a canal boat, and to this boat 
his steps were turned. He frankly related the lake exper- 
ience and confessed the canal was now as attractive as the 
sea. Letcher employed him to drive the mules. Once 
started he felt that the canal wasn't the rolling waves of the 
deep blue sea, but he trudged on uneventfully until, by his 
inexperience, he let the boat strike a bridge abutment with 
a taut line, which jerked the mules down the embankment 
and sent their rider into the water. He climbed to his seat, 
thankful it was the canal. At a lock a boat going the 
opposite wa}' came up just as Letcher was about to turn the 
lock for his own; the other got there first; Letcher's men 
sprang to the land ready for a hglit; they told the driver to 
come on. James asked the captain, " Does the right belong 
to us .'' " " No, I guess not; but we have started in for it 
and we are going to have it anyhow." "No, sir," said 
James, " I say we will noi have it. I will no^ fight to keep 
them out of their rights." This brought the crew to their 
senses, and the captain told the other boat to take the 
lock. 

That night the crew voted the driver a coward. This 
made him to them the most intolerable of all criminals. He 
had been in the compan}' of such men enough to sensibly 
feel the degradation. It requires a large amount of principle 
to stand against the decision of companions when that prin- 
ciple is regarded by them as cowardice. But he manfully 
held his own, and did so many generous acts on the trip, 



JAMES A. G^LRFIELD. 347 

that he began to win the respect of all the crew. As the 
boat neared Pittsburgh and was being hitched to a tug, a fly- 
ing piece of rope, thrown up from the tug, which James 
should have caught, struck "Dave," the bull}' of the boat. 
Turning on the bo}' in a rage he aimed a blow with all his 
strength, but the blow was dodged, and whirling about 
James planted a terrific blow behind the fellow's ear, which 
felled him to the floor. Before he could recover James 
straddled him and clutched his throat. The boat- 
men yelled with delight. The bully had been downed by a 
boy, and he, the coward of the boat. They danced around 
the victor and urged him on. The proper thing under such 
circumstances was for the top man to demolish the other 
man's features. James simply held him until the excitement 
had passed, and Dave was permitted to get up bloodless and 
without a scratch. From that hour he was the hero of the 
tow-path. 

A certain amount of physical courage is necessary to the 
duties of business. It is not often needed in physical combat, 
but the quality must be there to insure an aggressive advo- 
cacy of a cause, or an unflinching front in defense. The 
personal courage of Bismarck is equal to the valor of his 
statesmanship; the eloquence and patriotism of Demosthenes 
would have gone as chaff before the winds, had he not pos- 
sessed the lion-like courage to face a nation on the retreat, 
defying every possible danger, and on this courage his elo- 
quence had the opportunity to win the day. General 
Benjamin F. Butler was once announced to make a public ad- 
dress in New York, from a platform in front of the city hall. 
It was in the riotous election times of the war. The opposition 
papers warned him it was worth his life to make the attempt. 
A New York mob, which is equal to a Paris mob, surrounded 



SiS THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the stand. The general entered the hall from a back door, 
^nd from the front walked to his place. The mob ordered 
him not to speak; he smiled upon them and commenced to 
talk about the greatness of their city. They cried that it 
would'nt do, and threw missiles at the stand. An apple 
struck him and rolled away. He trotted after it, playfully 
picked it up, took out his knife and deliberately began to 
pare the apple and eat it, all the time talking about the 
glory of New York and the glory of the country. Within 
fifteen minutes he had the mob conquered, and delivered 
his speech. The committee had refused to go on to the 
stage with hirri. His life would have been in danger if he 
had evinced the slightest fear. It required courage to go 
there when he might have stayed away without risk. It 
was this same-courage that led him through three disastrous 
defeats in his campaign for the Governorship of Massachu- 
setts, facing an opposition terrible and scandalous, and has 
now tinall}' brought its reward by placing him in the guber- 
natorial chair by a triumphant majority. 

Garfield had now been advanced to bow-man, at the 
request of the captain's wife, who " felt so much safer when 
Jim was at the bow." One night, as they were nearing the 
last lock on their return, he was awakened suddenly, and, 
half asleep through continual watching and a sickness that 
was now settling on him, he lost his balance as he was pay- 
ing out the steadying rope, and went over the bow of the 
boat into the water. Instinctively clutching the rope, he 
sank below the surface ; then it tightened in his grasp and 
held firmly. Hand over hand he drew himself upon the 
deck. A kink in the rope had caught in a narrow cleft in 
the edge of the deck, so the windlass could not unwind, and 
proved his salvation. Long after the boat had passed the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. SiO 

lock he stood in his dripping clothes and pondered over the 
striking feature of the rope catching as it did. Coiling the 
rope, he tried to throw it again into the crevice, but it had 
lost the knack of kinking; many times he tried — six hund- 
red it is said — and then sat down and reflected. "I have 
thrown this rope six hundred times. I might throw it ten 
times as many without its catching. Ten times six hundred 
are six thousand, so there were six thousand chances against 
mv life; Providence alone could have saved me against such 
odds. If Providence thinks my life is worth saving, I won't 
throw it away on a canal boat. PU go home, get an educa- 
tion and become a man." 

When the boat landed in the inorning, he settled with the 
master, and bidding the crew good-b3-e, started for home. 
It was night when he reached the house, all the family had 
retired, save the mother. Through the open window he 
saw her poring over her Bible. His confidence was strength- 
ened that it was not all superstition that had driven him 
from the boat. In a few days his growing illness culminated 
in a sickness that held him in the house for four months — 
just the time he had been on the water. During his illness 
Samuel D. Bates, a teacher at the school house located on 
the Garfield place, frequently called on him, and astonished 
at his intelligence, urged him to attend the coming session 
of the '' Geauga Seminary," whither Bates was also going. 
James thought the subject over, but was undecided. He 
thought a good carpenter ought not to be spoiled to make a 
bad professor or preacher. Before making a decision he 
did a characteristicall}- sensible thing; he took a measure of 
his powers, mentalh- and physically, from a competent and 
disinterested gentleman. He called on Dr. J. P. Robinson, 
of Bedford, an eminent physician, and, introducing himself, 



350 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

said : " My home is at Orange. I have onl}' a scanty know- 
ledge of books, but have taken up the idea of getting an 
education, and before beginning I w^ant to know what I have 
to count on. Examine me and say plainly whether 3'ou 
think I will be able to succeed." 

The frank speech won the doctor, and he gave his caller 
a thorough examination both in body and mind, occupying 
an hour in drawing out the resources and quality of his 
mind. When the interview closed, the doctor said: "Your 
brain is large and good, and your physique is adapted to 
hard work. Go ahead! You are fitted to follow your am- 
bition, and you are sure to succeed." He no longer doubted 
his abilities. The following day he returned home, firmly 
determined to obtain an education and win a place in the 
world. 

It is of great value for a racer in the start for his contest 
to get an honest estimate given him of his powers. Half the 
young men at college have made efforts to get this valua- 
tion, but few have obtained it. They failed to consult the 
proper person. It never occurs to them that the physician, 
who has made the mind and temperament a study in connec- 
tion with the body, and to whom they are a stranger, is the 
only one fitted to give a trustworthy estimate of their pow- 
ers and possibilities. 

Having determined to secure an education, he began pre- 
parations for the ensuing term of the " Geauga Seminary." 
The expense was great to the family. An entire suit of 
clothes had to be added. Although the family at home 
made the suit, when its cost was added to other necessaries, 
it was found there was but seventeen dollars left for the 
board and tuition of the session. Three 3'oung friends 
joined with him, renting an old room and hiring an aged 



JA3IES A. GARFIELD. 351 

lady next door to do their cooking. From the autobio- 
graphy of Henry C. Wright they learned a tale of support- 
ing life on bread and crackers. The cook was dismissed 
and they did the work themselves. Garfield's life here 
lacked comfort, but it gave him power. Under the whip of 
his miserable surroundings he never for a moment lost sight 
of the purpose that brought him there. At every recitation 
he did his best. He never missed a meeting of the literary 
society. In that one term he made inore advancement in 
his studies than most students acquire in a year. When 
summer came the fare and the struggle of the winter had 
not abated his zeal. From the school he went into the 
harvest-field the next day. When harvest was over, he 
went back to the old occupation of wood chopper. 

When fall came, he had mone}'' enough saved to begin 
another term at the seminar}'. At the close of the last ses- 
sion, when they had discharged the cook and were living 
chiefly on bread, which was sent fresh from home ever}- 
week, and on their own mush and molasess, until James was 
growing sick and dissatisfied, he threw down his spoon one 
day, as he finished his pudding and molasses, saying, " I 
won't eat any inore of that stuff if I starve." So, on his 
return in the fall he took boarding and a room with a family 
at one dollar and six cents a week. This seemed extrava- 
gant to him, but one year on mush and potatoes was all he 
could endure. Boarding, he had a little more leisure, and 
he took all the odd jobs he could get at carpentering. His 
rough fare and hard work and study never altered his 
determination. Few successful men have spent their entire 
youth in school. The keenest intellects and the greatest 
minds have almost universally been found with those 
whose youth was inured to hardships and whose early 



35i3 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

years were spent in anxiety and hard work. Many 
vigorous minds inhabit frail bodies, which they usually over- 
work and crush before a start has fairly been made in life. 
With a healthy body, none need despair of an education, 
even with the most unfortunate surroundings. A mind is 
not all that is required — even in Yale and Harvard there 
must be a good animal as well. 

A knowledge of mathematics, of language and history is 
no more valuable because learned inside of college halls 
They can be learned easier there than elsewhere. Fre- 
quently a more practical bearing is given to the acquirement 
out of college than in it. The great questions of leadership 
among men are not assisted by a collegiate course. Many of 
our professors make leaders out of themselves instead of teach- 
ers. The real sphere of the teacher is to teach the pupil in all 
things which make a success in life. Timel}' hints dropped on 
matters of the world and how to live in it, often prove from 
a teacher of more real value to the pupil than a whole term 
of study. Calhoun studied the problems of politics and 
leadership quite as much during his college days as his 
recitations. He was near to perfect in his classes, and as 
well advanced in other science, for within two years after he 
graduated he was nominated for Congress. 

The following season the school trustees besought James 
to take a school, which the rowdyism of the big boys had 
broken up for two winters. A family consultation was 
held, to which " Uncle Amos" was invited. They all felt 
that the offer ought not to be refused, for the salary was 
badly needed. Uncle Amos finally settled the matter; "you 
go and try it," he said; "you will go into that school as the 
boy Jim Garfield; see that you come out as Mr. Garfield, the 
school-master." He accordingl}' began school, and mustered 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 353 

it in on an approved plan, flogging the bully after he had 
attempted to put the teacher out of the house. The manage- 
ment of this school was the most serious problem he hatl yet 
encountered. The leader had been thrashed, but not subju- 
gated. The teacher sought to be one with the pupils on 
the playground, and devised all sorts of plans for making the 
school interesting indoors. He " boarded around among the 
scholars" and entertained the families of evenings by read- 
ing aloud to them or reciting some of the remarkable things 
he had read. Before spring he had gained the good will of 
all, and was pronounced the best teacher the Ledge school 
had ever had. He returned to the seminary in the spring. 
The path which lay before him was not an inviting one. It 
required four years to complete the preparatory course, and 
four years more for the regular college course. He said, by 
attending otf and on, as he would have to quit at times to 
teach, he "could get through in twelve years." He entered 
this term, having succeeded as a teacher, with renewed 
determination to finish the regular course. He never swerved 
from that resolution. It became the overmastering thought 
of his life. He clung to that purpose with a tenacity and 
single-heartedness that bowed all other interests to this 
achievement. Lord John Russel was of wealthy and illustri- 
ous parentage, but had squandered his time in idle traveling ; 
when on the continent a letter received from his father an- 
nounced that his name had been proposed for Parliament, he 
came home, and was elected on the wealth and popularity of 
the family. The election gave him a place without the 
parts or dignity of character to maintain it. He at once 
resolved to make himself worthy of the trust given him. 
He placed himself under private tutelage, and studied with 
such ceaseless persistence that within four years he was re- 



354 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

cognized as one of the most learned gentlemen of the House, 
and became one of the most thoroughly educated and influen- 
tial of English statesmen. Andrew Johnson, who became Pre- 
sident of the United States, could neither read nor write when 
he was married at the age of twenty-one years. His wife 
taught him to read. With the care of a family dependent 
on his work as a tailor, he nevertheless so contrived to se- 
cure hours for study that he soon became conspicuous for his 
general information, and as United States Senator and as 
President of the nation, the absence from a college in his 
young years was never observable. A generous resolution 
to have an education has been found to be a greater gift 
than wealth or opportunities of youth. 

The Christian church held monthly services at the school 
house on the Garfield land. James had always attended 
church regularl}-. When a young preacher came into the 
neighborhood it was generally claimed that Jim Garfield 
knew more of the Bible than he did. In that early da}' the 
members of the Christian church were reputed to know the 
Bible by heart. The sect was every where spoken against, 
and holding the Bible as their only creed, they were thor- 
oughl}- posted in its teachings. Every Disciple was sup- 
posed to carry a Testament, ready to fire the chapter and 
verse of proof at any unlucky sectarian who chanced to 
attack him. Mrs. Garfield was a devoted Christian lady; 
she studied her Bible reverently, and reared her children in 
the like knowledge. The younger son, as he was arranging 
his plans for life, with characteristic thoughtfulness, united 
with the church. 

At the close of the second year at the seminary, he 
decided to try another school. Of this two years he after- 
ward said, " I remember with great satisfaction the work 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 355 

done for me at Chester ; it marked the most decisive change 
in my Hfe. While there I fonned a definite purpose to com- 
plete a college course." It is a great point gained when a 
young man makes up his mind to devote several years to 
the accomplishment of a definite work. With the educa- 
tional facilities now afforded in our country, no young man 
who has good health can be excused for not obtaining a 
good education. Poverty is very inconvenient, but it is a 
fine spur to activity, and may be made a rich blessing. 

Hiram College, an institution recently opened under the 
auspices of his own church, attracted his attention, and as it 
offered a superior course of study to the seminar}', he decided 
to go there. Shortly after he arrived at Hiram, learning 
that the officers of the college were in executive session, he 
introduced himself as a student from Orange, the son of a 
widow, compelled to work his way through school, and 
asked to be made janitor. The Board hesitated. He pleads, 
"Try me two weeks, and if you are not satisfied I will quit." 
They tried him; he did his duty perfectly, having at all 
times a pleasant word for pupils and professors. Very soon 
the school acknowledged the paradox, that the janitor was 
its most popular member. One of the teachers falling ill, 
Garfield was chosen to fill his place. He performed the 
duty so acceptably that he was never without a class dur- 
ing the remainder of his stay at Hiram. As a teacher, he 
was singularly successful ; his recitations were always inter- 
esting. He presented his own views on the subject in a 
manner unusually attractive, and then made the lesson 
luminous by illustrations drawn from his wide range of 
reading. 

Being janitor, pupil and tutor, did not lessen his attention 
to the carpenter business. Noons, evenings, and Saturdays, 



356 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

were spent at the odd jobs that could be picked up. This 
would have destroyed the standing of some men as tutor, 
and even as pupil, but he was sustained by a dignity of 
character, and earnestness of purpose, that made this add to 
the high esteem in which he was held. Entering Hiram 
without a dollar, he left free from debt and with three 
hundred and fifty dollars on which to enter another college. 
During the time he was at Hiram he took an active interest 
in the church, and usually led the social exercises. During 
the political campaign of that year he became engaged in 
politics, and sometimes caused the church to share his activi- 
ties with the political rallies. One evening during a pro- 
tracted meeting, while he was sitting in the pulpit with the 
pastor, a young man walked down the aisle and spoke to 
him, wanting him to go and address a political meeting. 
Garfield quietly slipped out of the church; when Father 
Bently discovered his absence, he was about to call him back, 
but comprehending the situation, he stopped suddenly and 
said, " Well, I suppose we must let him go. Ver}' likely he 
will be President of the United States some day." 

In after years, in a speech to the students at Hiram, 
recounting the struggles of the students when he was there 
in those early days, he said: " It was a simple question of 
sinking or swimming for themselves, and I know we are all 
inclined to be a little clannish over our own. We have, per- 
haps, a right to be; but I do not know of any place, I do 
not know of any institution, that has accomplished more 
with so little means as has this school on Hiram Hill. I 
know of no place where the doctrine of self-help has a fuller 
development, by necessity as well as finally by choice, as 
here on this hill. The doctrine of self-help and of force has 
the chief place among these men and women around here. 



JAMES A. GAUFIELD. 357 

As I said a great many years ago about that, the act of 
Hiram was to throw its young men and women overboard, 
and let them try it for themselves, and all those able to get 
ashore got ashore, and I think we had few cases of drown- 
ing." The second year at Hiram was not confined to the 
regular course of study; he was leading all his classes by 
such easy stages, that there was time for a distinct course in 
addition. He took up a regular system of historical and of 
theological reading. At Yale the regular course is so 
severe that no student can add any extra reading. The 
whole waking time is required by the number of studies and 
the length of the lessons, to prepare even the quickest minds 
for creditable recitation. To graduate with the honors of 
Yale is a proud achievement, but it is worth a student's life 
to secure the place. The majority of the first honors of 
that institution have never been heard of afterwards. The 
strain on tlie powers that have not been fully developed by 
time and hardened by experience is so great, that they never 
after mature and ripen to endurance. Ann Arbor is not so 
profound in her collegiate ways as many of the Eastern 
schools, and is therefore growing a race of men that will be 
vastly superior in the practical ways of the world. The 
graduate who, leaving college, gazes at his diploma and can 
say he knows all that that comprehends, will be distanced 
by the one who knows it, fairly well, and knows other things 
in addition. When the aged dean informed Webster that 
he received his diploma partially out of consideration for his 
venerable mother, the starless graduate tore the parchment 
in two, and told the faculty they would hear from him in 
the world. Dartmouth did hear from him in a few years 
in his illustrious defense of her interests before the United 
States Supreme Court. 



358 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

During the several years at Hiram, Garfield occupied the 
pulpits of the country churches in the neighborhood every 
Sunday. His preaching partook largely of his readings — 
theological discussions, illustrated and adorned with histori- 
cal reference. Reading inakes one full, but use is needed to 
give edge and value to the knowledge. A mind crowded 
with a mass of knowledge often grows more unwieldy than 
it was on half the amount of learning. Henry Clay coined 
the fruits of his reading and study each day by turning it 
into the mint of a half hour's extemporaneous speech. 
Ever afterwards each nugget of information thus preserved 
lay on its proper shelf in his mind ready to do dut}' on call. 
One year of constant study on one line of thought without 
voicing the gathered instruction is too much. To read and 
study upon some special subject each day, and vitalize it 
each night with an earnest discussion is a process of mental 
digestion that will produce the very best possible results. 
Discussion in a class is within limits and bound by restraints.. 
The glorious liberty of one's own chamber or barn lets the- 
impressioned thoughts go free, and gives the world a 
Demosthenes and a Calhoun. Garfield, with his immature 
mind and restricted education, was under such a system of 
study, able to address his congregations with an instruct- 
iveness that the ordinary experience of years as a speaker 
does not give. This kind of study proved its own incentive. 
It whet to a hungry appetite each hour of reading, and 
helped the mind to avoid the slow dawning of years by 
making application of its value at once. The remarkable 
breadth and range of knowledge, from wb.ich Garfield's- 
thought flowed in his public addresses, is attributable to 
this instantaneous assimilation of all the information he 
received. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 359 

Out of this growing experience he began to realize that 
he needed a broader field for his college life than a village 
institute afforded. He felt the want of libraries and learned 
men, and a larger contact with the world. There is a ben- 
eficial schooling acquired by changed associations: the 
mingling with people who live and act differently from the 
accustomed companions is a valuable part of a real educa- 
tion. Toward the institutions of the East he now turned 
his thoughts. He resolved to leave the State of Ohio. His 
friends were anxious for him to attend the splendid college 
founded and presided over by Alexander Campbell, at Beth- 
any, Virginia. It was the representative school of his 
church. Its theological advantages, under the presence of 
Doctor Campbell, were confessedly superior. But he 
argued, " I am the son of Disciple parents. I am one 
myself, and have had but little acquaintance with people of 
other views; and having always lived in the West I think it 
will make me more liberal, both in my religious and general 
views and sentiments to go into a new circle where I shall 
be under new influence. These considerations lead me to 
go to some New England college." He wrote a number of 
letters to Eastern colleges and finally decided to attend 
Williams College, at Massachusetts, because President Hop- 
kins wrote him a personal letter and said, " if you come 
here we shall be glad to do what we can for you." He said 
that seemed like kind of a friendly grasp of the hand. 

In September, 1854, now twenty-three years of age, he 
presented himself Jaefore the faculty of Williams College for 
examination. He passed to the junior year without ques- 
tion. In three years time he had prepared himself for the 
junior class. He had accomplished the usual work of six 
years. The achievement is remarkable in view of the large 



360 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

amount of other labor, physical and mental, which he had 
performed during that period, in order to secure his board, 
clothing and tuition. He had entered the college with the 
burden of a debt of five hundred dollars. The money 
saved at Hiram was not sufficient for the new course. His 
uncle loaned him the amount required. With it he saw the 
night of struggle giving way and a completed education 
within his reach. He had his life insured in favor of his 
uncle so that if death came he would owe no man anything. 
If he lived" he knew he would some day be able to repay it. 

He made an effort to teach evening writing school in the 
vicinity of Williamstown, but no considerable sum of money 
was earned. He dressed very plainly and cheaply, and was 
compelled to economize in every way — in his board, his 
books, and in his traveling expenses — in order to make the 
small sum he had secured last until his graduation. 

He was the humblest of the pupils. He was very poor, 
and brave enough to frankly acknowledge it. There is no 
more striking proof of the fact, so little understood, that 
college life is but a small part of the discipline and learning 
necessary to a liberal education than is found in the history 
of college classes. How often do we find that the brilliant, 
honored and influential students sink almost immediately out 
of sight when they leave the college halls and enter the 
breakers of actual life; while the silent, thoughtful one, 
whose presence in the class is scarcel}' remembered, comes 
conspicuously to the surface, in civil or military life, and 
soon towers above all his school-daj' associates. Sometimes, 
in the annals of scientific discovery or of national leadership, 
the popular and brilliant college student is found. Once in 
a while the valedictorian is again heard of in the vanguard 
of civilization, with the great and the good; but the raritv 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 361 

of it is a curious and sad feature connected with students' 
lives. It may be that the honors they received led them to 
the fatal conclusion that at their graduation they knew all 
that men need to learn, and stopping, they were soon left 
behind and beneath by the less successful candidates for 
class-day honors. Garfield's student days appear to have 
impressed him as but a portion of a whole life of study, and 
he conducted himself as if his graduation was to make no 
break in his pursuit of knowledge. Beginning it as if for a 
long journey, on which it would be unwise at first to hurry, 
he left the college as one who has passed the first mile, and 
looks back upon his progress with satisfaction and forward 
with unflinching determination. He does not appear to have 
been actuated by any desire for fame; neither had he any 
confidence in his ability to acquire riches. He purposed to 
do quiet, solid work, either as a preacher or teacher, and 
pictured to himself a life of studious quiet and religious 
peace. 

In his college days his characteristic simplicity was 
noticed and commended. He had a Puritan sense of his 
own worth, and was determined to appear to possess no 
more than his actual acquirements would warrant. If, for 
any reason, he was unprepared to recite his lesson, he 
frankly said so, and never manufactured an excuse nor bor- 
rowed a '' pony " or key. He was dressed in a homespun 
suit of clothes, and his language was touched with the bor- 
der community provincialisms. He was at times subjected 
to petty indignities which were deeply anno3'ing to his 
sensitive nature. Much of this might have been avoided if 
he had entered a lower class; but entering an upper class, 
from whose members rusticity had long since disappeared, 
he was considered a legitimate target for the students' sly 



362 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

wit and sarcasm. After a few months his commanding^ 
abilities began to assert themselves. Mediocrity was sinking 
to the bottom and ability was coming to the top. In the 
class-room he was exhibiting himself as an accurate scholar, 
and his large brain seemed packed with information of every 
sort and all ready for use at a moment's notice. President 
Hopkins became warmly attached to him, and before the 
year closed he was recognized as the most profound student 
in the college. 

The librar}' afforded him his coveted desire. He revelled 
in its books. Up to this time he had never seen a copy of 
Shakspeare and had never been privileged to read a line in 
the books of Walter Scott, Dickens or Thackeray. He read 
more books in that library than any other student during 
his stay at college. The following summer was spent at 
Prestonkill, New York, in the family of a preacher in the 
Christian church, and the time was occupied in teaching 
writing school. During a visit to Troy, which was but six 
miles distant, he became acquainted with the directors of 
the public schools of that city, and was one day surprised by 
an offer of a position as assistant teacher at a salary far 
beyond his expectations of what he could earn on his return 
to Ohio after his graduation. The proposition received his 
grave attention. If he accepted it he could pay his debts, 
marry the young lady to whom he was engaged, and live a 
life of comparative comfort in an Eastern city. But he could 
not finish his college course. He settled the question in a 
conversation. Walking on a hill called Mount Olympus 
with the gentleman who had made the proposition, Gartield 
said to him: "You are not Satan and I am not Jesus, but 
we are upon the mountain and you have tempted me power- 
fully. I think I may say, 'get thee behind me.' I am poor, 



JAMES A. QARFIELD. 363. 

and the salary would soon pay m}' debts and place me in a 
position of independence. But there are two objections. I 
could not accomplish my resolution to complete a college 
course and should be crippled intellectually for life. Then, 
my roots are all fixed in Ohio, where people know me and I 
know them, and this transplanting might not succeed as well 
in the long run as to go back home and work for smaller 

That resolution, tixed years before, to acquire an educa- 
tion, no matter what delay and sacrifice it might encounter, 
was still enthroned, and great as his wants were he was 
willing to continue to sacrifice that he might accomplish his 
determination. Paliss}' held a purpose steadfastly through 
every sacrifice and triumphed in the end. Garfield trampled 
on the temptation to relinquish his resolution, turned his face 
as flint to endure more sacrifice, and without the hope that 
his achievement would bring with it more than the reward 
of its possession. 

In the fall of 1855 Garfield returned to Williams College. 
He was elected one of the editors of the Williams Quarterly ^ 
and early distinguished its pages with a series of essays here- 
tofore unknown to college literature. His writings were 
marked by the characteristics of his own nature; the)' were 
thoughtful, comprehensive, reverent. One of these papers 
was entitled The Province of History. His idea was that 
history is to show the unfolding of a great providential plan 
in the affairs of men and nations. In the course of the arti- 
cle he said: 

" For ever}- village. State and nation, there is an aggre- 
gate of native talent which God has given, and by which, 
together with his Providence, he leads the nation on, and 
thus leads the world. In the light of these truths, we affirm 



364 THE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

that no man can understand the histor}- of any nation, or of 
the world, who does not recognize in it the power of God, 
and behold His stately goings forth as He walks among the 
nations. It is His hand that is moving the vast superstruc- 
ture of human history, and, though but one of the windows 
were unfinished, like that of the Arabian palace, 3'et all 
the powers of earth could never complete it without the aid 
of the di\-ine architect. To emplo}- another figure the 
world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of 
every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains 
have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there 
have been mingled the discord of roaring cannon and dying 
men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian — the 
humble listener — there has been a divine melod}- running 
through the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon days 
to come. The record of every orphan's sigh, of every 
widow's prayer, of every noble deed, of every honest heart- 
throb for the right, is swelling that gentle strain; and when, 
at last, the great end is attained, when the lost image of God 
is restored to the human soul, when the church anthem can 
be pealed forth without a discordant note, then will angels 
join in the chorus, and all the sons of God again shout for 

joy." 

This profound faith in a providential plan, " according to 
which history unfolds itself, and events and men are con- 
trolled," is seen here for the first time in Garfield's faith. 
He avowed himself later as a disbeliever in predestination. 
He recognized Deity as having the ascendency in the con- 
trol of all national and human aflairs, but that men could 
refuse to co-operate with that purpose and thwart its opera- 
tions. This faith had a peculiar and controlling influence 
on his life. Confidence in destiny has proved a motive of 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 365 

superior power on the lives of many of the world's eminent 
actors. When the ship was laboring in the storm and all 
on board had gi\en up hope, Caasar was calm, and said, 
"Fear not, you carry Cgesar and his fortune." They 
attribute their career to a superimposed destiny. Napoleon 
called himself "The Child of Destiny." Mohammed had 
an unflinching contidence in his fate. When such a faith 
possesses one he is likely to undertake enterprises that com- 
mon mortals would pale before, and the very heroism of his 
self-assurance helps him on to victory. Men ordinarily do 
not have natures broad enough, and con\ictions strong 
enough, to make them feel that the ^•er3• Eternal has ordered 
his battalions on their side. A heart}* faith in one's destiny 
along his chosen line of life, is worth, at the outset, twenty 
years of experience in the calling. 

In 1855 the Kansas civil war was raging. The entire 
country was aroused over the slavery question, and Kansas 
had become its battle-field. The member of Congress from 
that district addressed the citizens of Williamstown one 
evening. Garfield and a class-mate attended the speaking. 
The orator discussed chiefly the great slavery problem. As 
the students passed out of the house, Garfield said, " This 
subject is entirely new to me ; I am going to know all about 
it." The following day he sent for documents on the sub- 
ject and gave them a careful study. On June 17th, 1856, 
when the Republican party was born, Garfield was ready to 
make his offerings at its manger. 

When the news of Fremont's nomination was received, 
the Republican students joined with the citizens in a ratifica- 
tion meeting; after several speakers, Garfield was called on. 
His speech was an astonishment and surprise, even to those 
who had heard him in the literary debates; he spoke like a 



366 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

politician of mature experience; his enthusiastic eloquence 
electrified the audience, and his sitting down was the signal 
for rounds of applause. The old men present said he was 
a politician and would surely go to Congress. When he 
worked at carpentering his aptness for the work brought the 
prophecy that he would be a carpenter; when he taught 
classes at Hiram his success caused the president to say he 
would be a college professor; when he preached, it was 
universally conceded he had a call to the ministry; and now 
when he makes a political address, his hearers at once pro- 
nounce him a politician, and prophesy a seat in Congress. 
He was developing in a marked degree in all directions. 
He possessed no star of genius; he was growing into a sym- 
metrical and well rounded manhood, which is vastly better 
than an}' single phenomenal gift. President Hopkins says: 
" One point in Garfield's course of study, worthy of remark, 
was its evenness. There was nothing startling at an}' one 
time, and no special preference for any one study. There 
was a large general capacity applicable to any subject, and 
sound sense. What he did was done by honest and avowed 
work. There was no pretense of genius or alternation of 
spasmodic effort and of rest, but a satisfactory accomplish- 
ment in all directions of what was undertaken; hence there 
was a steady, healthful, onward and upward progress." Mr. 
Garfield graduated at Williams College in the spring ©f 
1856. Immediately on his return home he was elected to a 
professorship at Hiram ; from that time until 1861 he occupied 
the social position in the community of a minister of the 
Gospel, preaching every Sunday and taking an active part 
in the conferences and conventions of his church. These 
5rears of school labors at Hiram bound the hearts of hun- 
dreds of his pupils to his, and they spoke of him in terms 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 367 

of almost extrav-agant praise. He soon swelled the attend- 
ance to more than four hundred. 

His remarkable success was, in part, because he took an 
interest in the welfare of each student and stood on terms of 
familiar, yet dignified, acquaintance with them all. His 
activities during this period were immense. Every pupil 
felt his individuality; in the management of the school, he 
surcharged the institution with his personalit}'. After a 
stump-speech in 1877, he. made a talk to a friend on his 
college work, giving his estimate of the value of an educa- 
tion, and how he would encourage young men to continue 
their studies. As that conversation is so rich in its sugges- 
tions to help the struggling youth on to success, a portion of 
it is quoted. "I have taken more solid comfort in the 
thing itself, and received more recompense and stimulus in 
after life from capturing'young men for an education, than 
from anything else in the world. As I look back over my 
life thus far," he continued, " I think of nothing that so fills 
me with pleasure as the planning of these sieges, the revolv- 
ing in my mind of plans for scaling the walls of the 
fortress, of gaining access to the inner soul-life, and at last 
seeing the besieged party won to a fuller appreciation of 
himself, to a higher conception of life and to the part he is 
to bear in it. The principal guards which I have found it 
necessary to overcome in gaining these victories, are the 
parents or guardians of the young men themselves. I par- 
ticularly remember two such instances of capturing young 
men from their parents. Both of those boys are to-day 
educators of wide reputation — one president of a college, 
the other high in the ranks of graded school managers. 
Neither, in my opinion, would to-day have seen above the 
commonest walks of life unless I or some one else had 



368 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTJiT. 

captured liini. There is a period in every young man's life 
when a \er\- small thing will turn him one way or the other. 
He is distrustful of himself and uncertain as to what he 
should do; his parents are poor, perhaps, and argue that he 
has more education than they ever obtained, and that it is 
enough. These parents are sometimes a little too an.xious 
in regard to what their boys are going to do when they get 
through their college course. They talk to the }'oung men 
too much, and I have noticed that the boy who will make 
the best man is sometimes most ready to doubt himself. I 
always remember the turning point in my own life, and pity 
a young man at this stage from the bottom of my heart. 
One of the young men I refer to came to me on the closing- 
day of the spring term and bade me good-b}-e at ni}- study; 
I noticed that he awkwardly lingered after I expected him 
to go, and had turned to my writing again. ' I suppose you 
will be back again in the fall, Henry,' I said, to fill in the 
vacuum. He did not answer, and, turning towards him, I 
noticed that his eyes were filled with tears. 

He at length managed to stammer out: 'No, I am not 
coming back to Hiram any more; father says I have got 
education enough, and that he needs me to work on the 
farm; that education don't help along the farmers any.' 

'Is your father here.'*' I asked, almost as much aflected 
by the statement as the boy himself He was a peculiarly 
bright boy, one of those strong, awkward, bashful, blonde, 
large headed fellows, such as make men. He was not a 
prodigy b}" any means, but he knew what work meant, and 
when he had won a thing by a true endeavor, he knew its 
value. 

' Yes, father is here, and is taking my things home for 
good,' said the boy, more affected than ever. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. _ 369 

'Well, don't feel badly,' I said. 'Please tell him that 
Mr. Garfield would like to see him at his study before he 
leaves the village. Don't tell him that it is about you, but 
that I w^ant to see him.' 

In the course of a half hour the old gentleman, a robust 
specimen of the Western Reserve Yankee, came into the 
room, and awkwardly sat down. I knew something of the 
man before, and I thought I knew how to begin; I shot 
right at the bull's eye immediatel}'. 

' So you have come to take Henry home with you, have 
you?' 

The old gentleman answered 'yes.' 

'I sent for you because I wanted to have a little talk 
with you about Henry's future. He is coming back again 
in the fall, I hope.' 

'Well, I think not; I don't reckon I can afford to send him 
any more. He's got eddication enough for a farmer already, 
and I notice when they git too much they sorter git lazy. 
Yer eddicated farmers are humbugs. Henry's got so fur 
now that he'd rother have his head in a book than be work- 
ing. He don't take no interest in the stock, nor in the farm 
improvements. Everj'body else in this world is dependent 
on the farmers, and I think we've got too many eddicated 
fellows settin' around now, for the farmers to support.' 

' I am sorry to hear you talk so,' I said ; ' for really I con- 
sider Henry one of the brightest and most faithful students 
I ever had. I have taken a very deep interest in him. 
What I wanted to say to you was, that the matter of educat- 
ing him has largely been a constant outgo thus far, but, if he 
is permitted to come next fall term, he will be far enough 
advanced so he can teach school in winter, and begin to help 
himself and you along. He can earn very little on the farm 



370 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

in winter, and he can get very good wages teaching. How 
does that strike ye? ' 

The idea was a new and a good one to him. He simply 
remarked, 'do you really think he can teach next winter.'^' 

'I should think so, certainly,' I replied, 'but if he cannot 
do so then, he can in a short time anyhow.' 

' Wal, I'll think on it; he wants to come back bad enough, 
and I guess FU have to let him. I never thought of it in 
that way afore.' 

I knew I was safe; it was the financial question that 
troubled the old gentleman, and I knew that would be over- 
come when Henry got to teaching and could earn his money 
himself. He would then be so far along, too, he could fight 
his own battles. He came all right the next fall, and after 
finishing at Hiram, graduated at an Eastern college. 

The other man I spoke of was a diflerent case. I knew 
that this youth was going to leave mainly for financial reas- 
ons, also, but I understood his father well enough to know 
the matter must be managed with extreme delicacy. He 
was a man of very strong religious convictions, and I thought 
he might be approached from that side of his character; so 
when I got the letter of the son telling me, in the saddest 
language he could muster, that he could not come back to 
school any more, but must be content to be simply a farmer, 
much as it was against his inclination, I revolved the mat- 
ter in my mind, and decided to send an appointment to preach 
in the little country church where the old gentleman attended. 
I took for a subject the parable of the talents, and in the 
course of ni}- discourse dwelt specially upon the fact that 
children were the talents which had been intrusted to parents, 
nod, if these talents were not increased and developed, there 
was a fearful trust neglected. After church, I called upon 



JAMES A. OAMFIELD. 371 

the parents of the boy. I was besieging, and I saw that 
something was weighing upon their minds. At length the 
subject of the discourse was taken up and gone over again, 
and, in due course, the young inan himself was discussed, 
and I gave ni}' opinion that he should by all means be 
encouraged and assisted in taking a thorough course of 
study. I gave my opinion that there was nothing more 
important to the parent than to do all in his power for the 
children. The next term the young man again appeared on 
Hiram Hill, and remained until graduation." 

In 1858 Professor Garfield was elected President of Hiram 
College. Feeling now that he was secure in a living, he 
married Miss Lucretia Rudolph, to whom he had been 
engaged five years. They commenced their life in a hum- 
ble way; his wife had abundant common sense, and was will- 
ing to make her life conform to their financial circumstances. 
He was singularly happy in both mother and wife. His 
mother was the stay and guide of his youth, and she never 
forsook her station in his inaturer 3'ears; his wife in her 
industry, economy and intellectual strength became his help- 
mate, with whose advent self-sacrificing struggle and adver- 
sity moved to the rear, and the era of prosperity and fame 
began. 

Shortl}' after his marriage he began the study of law, all 
unknown to his friends, pursuing his studies at home as he did 
other reading. He possessed an ability to study day after 
day of which few men are capable. It was about this time 
he held his famous debate on science and the Bible with 
Professor Denton. The out-come of the debate was a sig- 
nal triumph for President Garfield, and exhibited again the 
unusual range of his mental acquirements. He had formed 
the habit of stud3'ing at odd hours and places, filling in the 



372 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

entire day with some profitable matter. In one year, by 
occupying his odd hours in stud}ing science as it relates to 
the Bible, he was enabled to meet and overthrow the cham- 
pion of infidelit}- in his State. By the use of these spare 
times he completed in two years the appointed course of 
legal preparation for admission to the bar. Without any 
course whatever except the garnered half-hours spent in mis- 
cellaneous religious reading, and one chapter in the Bible 
read each da}-, he was preaching every Sunday, and was 
regarded as the ablest expounder of theolog}' in the Western 
Reserve. This was not so n>uch the result of genius as it was 
the result of a splendid gift of application. 

He possessed Leonardo De Vinci's capacity of knowing 
all things well. Many students know a little of many things; 
this smattering seems to daze the mind. They cannot com- 
prehend anything clearly. A resolution to learn a subject 
followed with a puny effort, had better never been made. 
" Drink deep at the Pyrean spring, or not drink at all."' 
Such minds should ha\e the courage to be ignorant of many 
things that the}' may know a few things perfectly. It is not 
enough to have the knack to save every leisure hour, and fill 
it with a systematic line of stud}', having the book always 
at hand ; there must also be the health to endure this unceas- 
ing strain. If the health gives way under it, it must be 
relinquished until there is a complete restoration of the vital 
forces. If the constitution becomes once undermined, then 
the business for the remainder of life is to keep in sufficient 
repair, that even the odd hours can be given to the life call- 
ing. If Edison had suffered from indigestion, he would 
never have revolutionized the world's use of electricity. If 
Grant had had the dyspepsia, he would not have had the 
pluck to say he would fight it out on this line if it took all 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 373 

summer. If Brougham had not slept well, he could not have 
been fresh for his duty on eighteen hours in bed, after hav- 
ing been at his desk in the Foreign Office for three days and 
nights. 

About this time Garfield was growing interested in poli- 
tics. He was looked upon as the rising man in his part of 
the State. The people naturally turned to him for leader- 
ship in the Senatorial Convention of 1859, in his and the 
adjoining county. Much difficulty was experienced in select- 
ing a suitable candidate. At length a member of the con- 
vention arose and said: "Gentlemen: I can name a man 
whose standing, character, ability and industry, will carry 
the district. It is President Garfield, of Hiram School. '' 
He was at once nominated by acclamation. He was now 
beset by a torrent of opposition from his church members to 
defeat his acceptance of the nomination. A yearl}' meeting 
of the church occurred within a few days; the leaders from 
far and near were in attendance, and Garfield going off into 
the vain struggle of worldly ambition was much debated. 
There were a few members who thought a man could be a 
Christian and a politician, too. When the President arrived, 
he heard his solicitous friends kindly, and then said: " I 
believe I can enter political life and retain my integrity, 
manhood and religion. I believe there is vastly more need 
of manly men in politics than of preachers. Mother is at 
Jason Robbins'. I will go there and talk with her; if she will 
give her consent I will accept the nomination." His mother 
heard his statement, and in her reply, said : " I have had a 
hope and desire, ever since you joined the church, that 3'ou 
would be a preacher. I have been happy in }'our success as 
a preacher, and lately had looked upon it as settled, but if 
you can retain your manhood and religion in political life, 



374 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

and believe 3"ou can do the most good there, 3'ou have my 
full consent." With this answer as his assurance, he accepted 
the nomination, and placed his foot on the first round in the 
aspiring ladder. 

He was elected and at once took high rank in the Legisla- 
ture as a man well informed on the subjects of legislation, 
and effective and powerful in debate. He seemed always 
prepared to speak, but it was because every measure intro- 
duced into the Senate received his thorough consideration. 
Like Thiers, he had always mastered the subject before the 
debate arrived. He was of commanding size, with a deep, 
mellow voice. He would often become aroused in discus- 
sion, but never angry. He was never known to lose his 
balance. His genial, warm-hearted nature was inanifest in 
his very hand-shaking of an acquaintance. Cox, Monroe 
and Garfield formed the triumvirate of the Legislature. 
Garfield was the youngest of the three. But he was not 
regarded as a politician. He was looked on as a teacher 
and preacher. His earnestness, his thoughtfulness and sin- 
cerity made him a conspicuous object for legislative esteem, 
with both his political friends and opponents. He seemed 
to care nothing for popularity, and strove only to do his 
dut}-. He hated every form of unfairness and oppression; 
hence the disinterested and vigorous interest he took in 
many measures, opposing his party to the apparent sacrifice 
of his political standing. He may have been ambitious; if 
so, it was bounded b}' the limits of duty, for he never sup- 
ported a measure in order to capture the voters. He never 
made a speech for mere effect, and by his course said to the 
world, " If )-ou need my services you must call for them." 
The truckling demagogue seldom ever wins any place of 
real worth. The great public eye seems to be well nigh 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 375 

omniscient. It perceives men's motives even if they be hid 
under the cloak of some worthy endeavor. It never fails to 
single out the true from the false, and in the long run the 
men who are truthful, sincere and unyielding in their integ- 
rity receive the laurels. 

Garfield himself once discussed this thought to his 
students, and the gi-eat common sense of his nature acted on 
his own advice. He said: "One of the passages in Pas- 
cal says the true way to study history is to treat the whole 
human race as one colossal, immortal man, forever living, 
always learning; who sometimes stumbles and falls, but who 
in the long run always advances in intelligence and civiliza- 
tion. This thought of Pascal's is one of remarkable beauty 
and value. I have often dwelt over it, and carried it much 
farther than it is carried by the philosopher. The people of 
a republic like ours are peculiarly like a single great indi- 
vidual man, full of passions — prejudices often — but with a 
great heart, despising anything like show or pretense, and 
always striving forward in a. general right direction. The 
popular verdict, expressed as the voice of this giant man, is 
sometimes wrong, but in the course of time it assumes the 
right tendency again. This individual pays but little atten- 
tion to infinite things, unless there is something very peculiar 
about them. He casts his ox-like eye, in a sort of slow and 
easy way, along the horizon, and ascertains about where a 
great many men are. If any of these men who appear 
before his general vision make any special effort to attract 
his attention he probabl}^ smiles a sort of a contemptuous 
smile and passes on. Men often attempt to attract his 
attention, some one way and others another. If the old 
fellow once fastens his eye on a man or woman from some 
legitimate act or course of action of his or hers, that person 



376 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

has that thing happen to him known as fame. If the old 
fellow's eye is caused to rest on a person from some out- 
landish caper, performed on purpose to catch his eye, that 
man is only notorious. The way to make tlie old giant 
take special notice of a man of worth is not to pa}- much 
attention to him, but keep on one's course regardless of 
whether he sees or not." 

To Garfield the election to the Senate was a piece of good 
fortune. It enlarged his field of practical observation, and 
gave him a valuable acquaintance with the public men of 
Ohio. It gave him a deeper sense of the importance of legal 
studies. It gave him a glimpse of how States are built. He 
was prepared for this opportunity when it came. He went 
forth from the Legislative halls the leader of the radical 
trium\irate. He discussed matters of State with the same 
unction and sincerity that he had preached the gospel. As 
a consequence the Governor of the State looked upon the 
youthful statesman — now twenty-eight years of age — as 
the safest and ablest counselor he had in the Legislature. 
He had had an opportunity to exhibit his wares, and they 
were found of value in the market. 

It is i-elated of Barr}- that when a mere boy he performed 
a journey from Cork to Dublin on foot, with his first picture 
— the conversion of the Pagans by St. Patrick. It was 
placed in a remote corner of one of the exhibition rooms, 
where it was unlikely that any eye would rest upon it. It 
did not, however, escape the observation of the great 
Edmund Burke. He inquired of the secretary the name of 
the painter. "I don't know," said that gentleman, "but it 
was brought here by that little bo}*," pointing to Barr}-, 
who was modestly standing near his work. '' Where did 
you get this picture, ni}' boy?" said Burke, "who painted 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 377 

it?" "It is mine," said the boy, "I painted it." "Oh, 
that is impossible!" said Burke, glancing at the poorly clad 
youth. Burke called the attention of others to the picture 
and to the lad. As a result Barry was soon lifted to wealth 
-and fame. 

A discovery of one's own powers is sometimes made b}' 
hearing or seeing for the first time something that awakens 
that dormant element within their breast. One of Eng- 
land's most remarkable singers had her " gift " to arise in 
this way: Her mother had taken her to hear some cele- 
brated singer, and the young girl, when she returned home, 
imagined that her voice reached as high a note as the cele- 
brated singer's. It was even so, and a course of training 
developed a great soprano. It is at rare intervals that one 
is so possessed of power that they rise in spite of opportuni- 
ties. Pascal was such a mathematical prodigy that even the 
keeping of all books on that science secreted from him was 
not able to hinder his progress and keep him from discover- 
ing for himself the great laws of mathematics. So Michael 
Angelo needed no instructor; he was a master of art while 
yet a lad. It chanced that when Domenico was painting 
the great chapel of Santa Maria Novella, he one day went 
out, and INIichael Angelo then set himself to draw the scaf- 
folding with some trestles', the various utensils of the art and 
some of the young men who were working there. Domenico, 
having returned and seen the drawing of Michael Angelo, 
exclaimed, " This boy knows more than I do." Such had 
been the originality and novelty of manner in which the 
judgment of the boy had directed the outlines of the work. 
Such as these possess phenomenal gifts, whose first work is 
as good as their last. But in statesmanship, oratory and 



378 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the practical callings of life, these gifts cannot attain in their 
singular development. 

In 1861 Garfield was yet a member of the Senate. He 
had not been a considerable factor in wielding the great 
issues in which Lincoln and Douglas had taken so promi- 
nent a part. With convictions as radical as theirs he had 
been moving on the paths that lead to "peace." But when 
the alarm of war was sounded, he was ready for the tray 
on the instant. When the President's call for seventy-five 
thousand men was announced to the Ohio Senate, Senator 
Garfield was instantly on his feet, and moved that " twenty 
thousand troops and three millions of money " should be at 
once voted as Ohio's quota! He immediately illustrated 
his speech by offering his own services in any capacity 
Governor Dennison might choose. While waiting a wider 
field he occupied himself in organizing the militia. Gov- 
ernor Dennison soon offered him the position of Lieutenant- 
Colonel; this would take him into the field and give him 
direct participation in the war. While his patriotism was 
prepared to advocate extreme measures for the Union, yet 
when he was to become a leader in battles and their carnage, 
it was so foreign to his whole nature that he went home to 
quietly consult and think over his duty. In a few da3-s he 
wrote to a friend: "I regard my life as given to the 
country. I am only anxious to make as much of it as possi- 
ble before the mortgage on it is foreclosed." At the same 
sitting he wrote to the Governor his acceptance of the 
offered position. He was soon ordered, under Buell, to Ken- 
tucky. There was a deep importance attached to this expe- 
dition. The prize at stake was Kentucky. The Southern 
plan was for the State to be occupied by the Confederate 
forces and then have her secede from the Union. If Hum- 



JAMES A. OASFIELD. 37i> 

phrey Marshall's army could be driven out, secession might 
be prevented, and the State kept in the Union. 

" That is what you have to do, Colonel Garfield — drive 
Marshall from Kentucky," said Buell to him when he 
reported at headquarters, '' and you see how mnch depends 
on your action. Now go to your quarters, think of it over 
night and come here in the morning and tell me how you 
will do it." 

On his way to his hotel he bought a map of Kentucky, 
and then shutting himself in his room, spent the night in 
studying the geography of the country in which he was to 
operate, and in making notes of the plan which seemed to 
him likely to secure the objects of the campaign. On the 
following morning he informed Buell of his plan of move- 
ments, to which the general simply replied, "You will 
receive your orders at six o'clock — be ready to move." 
Promptly at the hour his order came, embracing with a 
slight modification his plan submitted that morning. 

The young Lieutenant-Colonel was given command of a 
brigade, and placed in charge of a most important campaign 
before he had had experience even in drilling a regiment in 
the manual of arms. That an experienced strategist, as 
Buell, should have periled so much to a commander fresh 
from civil life, seems unexplainable. Colonel Garfield came 
upon the forces of Marshall in the vicinity of Middle Creek. 
By a series of maneucevers that were Napoleonic, in their 
strategy and rapidity of execution, he put the enemy 
under a false impression of his whereabouts, and in a vast 
over-estimation of his numbers. At the critical juncture he 
fell upon him, as the French upon the allied kings at Auster- 
litz, and before sunset saw him flying southward, and Ken- 
tucky was saved. 



380 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

It was a wonderful battle in its results, although the ar- 
mies engaged were small. Edmund Kirke said of it: "In 
the history of the late war there is not another like it. 
Measured by the forces engaged, the valor diplayed and the 
results that followed, it thi'ows into the shade the achiev- 
ments of even that mighty host that saved the nation. 
Eleven hundred foot-sore and weary men, without cannon, 
charged up. a rock}' hill, over stumps, over stones, over 
fallen trees, over high entrenchments, right into the face of 
five thousand fresh troops with twelve pieces of artiller}'." 
Speaking of this engagement, Garfield said, after he had 
gained a wider experience in war, "If I had been an oflicer 
of more experience I probably should not have made the 
attack. As it was, having gone into the army with the 
notion that fighting was our business, I didn't know any 
better." 

Promply on the report of this battle reaching Washington, 
Garfield was created a Brigadier-General. Given his choice 
to take command of a brigade, or become chief of staff to 
Rosecrans, he chose the latter; he felt himself to be a gen- 
eral only in position, not in knowledge of military tactics. 
He would then have counsel of a superior tactician, and could 
become a student of the science. He distinguished himself 
in the councils of Rosecrans by never making a mistake in 
his judgment. He seemed to be able to plan a campaign 
with a hundred thousand men as successfully as he had man- 
aged four hundred students at Hiram. 

The great day of Chicamauga came. Discouraged and 
baffled, Rosecrans decided to leave the field. Garfield plead 
with him to continue the fight and form a junction with the 
other wing of the army, in which case they could overthrow 
the enemy, but the general persisted he could not form the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 381 

junction, and " the enemy's left could not be turned." He 
then begged Rosecrans to permit him to go and join 
Thomas, who still persisted in holding the enemy in check. 
To this consent was given, and» Garfield dashed off with 
two faithful men along the very road he said the junction 
with Thomas could be made, and reached that general, told 
him of the defeat of the right wing under Rosecrans, and 
enabled Thomas to mass his forces on the enepi3''s left, and 
when night closed was master of the field. 

In a few weeks Garfield was nominated for Congress in 
his home district. On consulting Rosecrans, that generous 
otficer told him the war would continue for some time, and 
that the army needed men in Congress who had acquaint- 
ance with military affairs. " Let me give you a piece of 
advice," he continued, "when you go to Congress, be care- 
ful about what you say. Don't talk too much, but when 
you do talk, speak to the point. Be true to 30urself and 
you will make your tnark before the countr}'." A few days 
after this, he was promoted to a Major-Generalship, " for 
gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Chica- 
mauga." He had before him a brilliant military future, and 
a IMajor-General's salary was double that of a Congressman. 
He needed the salary, for he was poor. But the election had 
taken place in the meantime, and he had been chosen to 
Congress by a vast majority. Army officers urged his 
acceptance of the election, and under the belief that the 
path of duty and greatest usefulness lay in the direction of 
national legislation, he resigned his commission on the 5th 
of December, 1863, and proceeded at once to Washington. 
He was placed upon the Militar}' Committee the same ses- 
sion. His first term in Congress was signaled by earnest 
work on his various committees. He became a recognized 



382 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

debater at an early day. His knowledge of national affairs 
seemed to be as mature as that of the oldest statesman. 
The members of both Houses were not long in discovering 
that a fresh, strong, intellectual force had moved into their 
midst, that was destined to make its mark upon the politics 
of the country. They sought his acquaintance, and before 
he had been long in Washington he had the advantage of 
the best society in the capital. 

When his Congressional convention met in 1864, many of 
the delegates hesitated to vote for Garfield, alleging that 
he had written the Wade-Davis manifesto against President 
Lincoln, or, at least, was in sympathy with it. His defeat 
seemed evident. Entering the convention hall, he walked 
up to the platform, planted himself firmly on it, and began 
a speech that he must have thought would dig his own 
grave. He told his hearers that he had not written the 
Wade-Davis letter, but he had only one regret connected 
with it, and that was that there was a necessity for its ap- 
pearance. He approved the letter, defended the motives of 
the authors, asserted his right to independence of thought 
and action, and told the delegates that if they did not want 
a free agent for their representative, they had better find 
another man, for he did not desire to serve them longer. 

When he had finished speaking he left the platform and 
strode out of the hall. His very boldness had captivated 
the convention. For an instant there was a hush of silence, 
and then an Ashtabula delegate sprang to his feet and ex- 
clamed, "The man that can face a convention like that 
ought to be nominated for Congress by acclamation." It 
only took the convention a moment to learn that it admired 
pluck, and with a whirl of thundering applause Garfield 



JAMES A. OARFIELD. 383 

-was renominated without a dissenting voice. He was elected 
by twelve thousand majority. 

Speaking of this incident afterwards, he said it was a 
bold action, but he believed Mr. Wade and Mr. Davis to be 
right, and he determined to stand by them. " This showed 
me completely the truth of the old maxim, that honesty is 
the best policy; and I have ever since been entirely indepen- 
dent in my relations with the people of my district." 

In 1866 he argued the L. P. Milligan conspiracy case 
against the Government, appealed to the Supreme Court from 
the courts of Indiana. The ablest legal talent of the nation 
was arrayed in this celebrated trial. Garfield's argument 
was universally conceded to be one of the profoundest efforts 
ever made before the Supreme Court. Its parallel can 
be found only in the advocate's plea for the Government 
in the impeachment of Warren Hastings. It was there 
learned that this man who had gone no farther into the bar 
than to be admitted, and who had read law in the seclusion 
of his own study, was one of the greatest law3'ers in the land ; 
that arrangement of information, as it was received into its 
proper department in his mind, and becoming accustomed 
to it every day by extemporaneous speaking, was proving, as 
his life developed into a larger field of action, to be a bank of 
reserve funds, upon which he might check in times of neces- 
sity and never exhaust. His continued practice drilled his 
memory to furnish him, without effort, an additional argu- 
ment, or an apt illustration whenever needed. He had 
learned to think standing on his feet. His mind operated as 
freely and as entirely before the august bench of the nation's 
supreme judges as it did in addressing his brethren in a 
country church. 

He chanced to be in New York at the time of the assas- 



3SJ: THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

sination of President Lincoln. His majestic utterance at the 
critical moment before that vast mob will be celebrated in 
the annals of the country wherever great public danger 
threatens the Government. It is an illustration of his won- 
derful gift in doing the right thing at the right time. An 
eye-witness of the scene says: "It was the morning after 
President Lincoln's assassination; the country was excited to 
its utmost tension, and New York seemed ready for the 
scenes of the French Revolution. The intelligence of Lin- 
coln's murder had been flashed by the wires over the whole 
land. The newspaper head-lines of the transaction were set 
up in the largest type, and the high crime was on everyone's 
tongue. Fear took possession of men's minds as to the fate 
of the Government; for in a few hours news came on that 
Seward's throat was cut, and that attempts had been made 
upon the lives of others of the Government officers. Posters 
were stuck up everywhere in great black letters, calling upon 
the loyal citizens of New York and neighboring cities to 
meet around the Wall Street Exchange and give expression 
to their sentiments. It was a dark and terrible hour; what 
might come next no one could. tell, and men spoke with 
bated breath. Eleven o'clock, A. M., was the hour set for 
the meeting. Fifty thousand people crowded around the 
Exchange building. We stood in solemnity and silence,, 
waiting for General Butler who, it was announced, had 
started from Washington, and was expected in the city every 
moment. Nearly a hundred generals, judges, statesmen, 
editors, clergymen and others, were in the building waiting 
Butler's arrival. They stepped out on to the balcony to 
watch the fearfully solemn and swa3'ing mass of people. 
Not a hurrah was heard, but for the most part a dead silence 
or a deep ominous muttering ran like a rising wave up the- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 385 

street toward Broadway, and again down toward the river 
on the right. At length the batons of the police were seen 
swinging in the air far upon the left, parting the crowd and 
pressing it back to make way for a carriage that moved 
slowly through the compact multitude. Suddenly the silence 
was broken, and the cry of " Butler! Butler! Butler! " rang 
out with tremendous and thrilling effect, and was taken up 
by the people, but not a hurrah! Not one! It was the cry 
of a great people asking to know how their President died. 
The blood bounded in our veins, and the tears ran in streams 
down our faces. How it was done I forget, but Butler was 
pulled through and pulled up, and entered the room where 
the committee awaited him. A broad crape a yard long 
hung from his right arm — a terrible contrast to the thousand 
f^ags that were waving the nation's victory in the breeze. 
We first realized then the truth of the sad news that Lin- 
coln was dead. The only word that Butler had for us all 
at the first break of the silence was: " Gentlemen, he died 
in the fullness of his fame," and as he spoke it his lips quiv- 
ered, and the tears ran fast down his cheeks; then after a 
few moments came the speaking, and you can imagine the 
effect, as the crape fluttered in the wind, while his arm was 
uplifted. Dickinson, of New York State, was fairly wild. The 
old man leaped over the iron railing of the balcon^•, and 
stood on the very edge overhanging the crowd, gesticulat- 
ing in the most vehement manner, and almost bidding the 
crowd to go forth to some deed of violence, while a by- 
stander held on to his coat to keep him from falling over. 
By this time the wave of popular indignation had swelled to 
its crest. Two men lay bleeding on one of the side streets; 
the one dead, the other next to dying; one on the pa\ement, 
the other in the gutter. They had said a moment before 



386 THE GENIUS OB' INDUSTRY. 

that, " Lincoln ought to have been shot along ago. " 
Soon two long pieces of scantling stood out above the heads 
of the crowd, crossing at the top like the letter X, and a 
looped halter pendant from the junction. A dozen men fol- 
lowing its slow motion through the masses, while " Ven- 
geance! " was the cry. On the right suddenly the shout 
arose: "The World! the World! the office of the 
World! " and a movement of perhaps eight thousand, or 
ten thousand, turning their faces in the direction of that 
building, began to be executed. It was a critical moment; 
what might come- no one could tell, did that crowd get in 
front of that office. Police or military would have availed 
little, or been too late. A telegram had just been received 
from Washington, " Seward is dj'ing." Just then at that 
juncture a man stepped forward with a small flag in his 
hand, and beckoned to the crowd. " Another telegram from 
Washington!" and then, in the awful stillness of the crisis, 
taking advantage of the hesitation of the crowd, whose 
steps had been arrested a moment, a right arm was lifted 
skyward, and a voice, clear and steady, loud and distinct, 
spoke out: " Fellow -citizens, clouds and darkness are 
around about Him ! His pa\ilion is dark waters and thick 
clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establish- 
ment of His throne! Mere}' and truth shall go before His 
face! Fellow-citizens, God reigns, and the government at 
Washington still lives!" 

The effect was tremendous. The crowd stood riveted 
to the ground with awe, gazing at the motionless orator and 
thinking of God and the security of the government in that 
hour. As the boiling wave subsides and settles to the sea 
when some strong wind beats it down, so the tumult of the 
people sank and became still. All took it as a Divine omen. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 387 

It was a triumph of eloquence, inspired by the moment, 
such as falls to but one man's lot and that but once in a 
century. The genius of Webster, Choate, Everett, Seward, 
never reached it. What might have happened had the 
surging and maddened mob let loose none can tell. The 
man for the crisis was on the spot, more potent than 
Napoleon's guns at Paris. I inquired what was his name. 
The answer came in a low whisper, " It is General Garfield, 
of Ohio." 

In the summer of 1868 he was again a candidate for 
renomination. A great revolution had taken place in the 
financial problem. It was more noticeable in Ohio than in 
any other State. Garfield wrote a letter to Hinsdale, in 
March of that }'ear, in which he said: " The State conven- 
tion at Columbus has committed itself to some financial 
doctrines that, if I understand them, I can not and will not 
endorse. If my constituents approve them they can not 
approve me. Before many weeks my immediate political 
future will be decided. I care less about the result than I 
have ever cared before." 

The resolution formed four years before he was stead- 
fastW adhering to. This could only be political death, for 
a rebellion in a Congressional district against the State 
platform would defeat either the State ticket or the Con- 
gressional candidate. Like John Bright, of England, whose 
admiration for his character caused him to move Garfield's 
election as a member of the Cobden Club, General Garfield 
never trimmed with his party. His political views were to 
him matters of principle. They were deep seated, and held 
in the same reverent regard as his religious convictions. He 
possessed a patriotism larger than his party, as broad as his 



388 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

common country, and was filled with a philanthropy for all 
mankind. He was a statesman and a patriot. 

When he returned home from Congress his friends found 
he was immovable on the financial question. A short time 
before the nominating convention he was about to return to 
Washington. His friends arranged to give him a reception 
at Jefferson on the eve of his departure. There was to be 
some speech-making, and his confidential friends advised 
him to let the financial question alone. The welcome 
address contained some broad hints. It kindly intimated 
that the district must not disagree with the State platform, 
and that he ought to endorse the State position if he asked 
for a renomination. " Then the thunder let fl}'." He took 
up the question of finance, and, in the boldest terms, 
denounced the State platform as dishonest and unworthy of 
support. He declared that if a life-time of office were 
offered him, with the understanding that he was to support 
the platform he would refuse it at once. He had again con- 
sternated his friends by his conscientious independence. 
The next morning he went to Washington. When the 
time for the convention came the whole district had learned 
of his speech. With one voice they said they preferred 
integrity and abilit}^ above mere party fealty, and again he 
was renominated and triumphantly re-elected by a people 
who were not in accord with his views. 

He was a hard worker, and punctual in the performance 
of promises and duty. He possessed the faculty of attention. 
It is said when he preached that he knew the color of every 
woman's dress, and the number of buttons of every man's 
coat in his congregation. His mind, like Leonardo's, was 
always in a receptive condition. He obtained recreation by 
changing his subjects of study. Attention gave him punc- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 389 

tuality. One rule of his public life was that every civil 
letter, no matter from what source or on what subject, 
demanded an answer. After a few years in Congress this 
habit became known, and scores of men from the districts 
of other Congressmen made their inquiries or asked their 
favors of him instead of their own member. This made his 
correspondence large and exacting. He handled it, how- 
ever, with ease, for he possessed genius of labor. 

At college and during his early public career, twenty 
hours of study was common with him, and every hour of 
the twenty had its task. When asked by a campaign 
writer, during the Presidential contest of 1880, for one of 
his sermons, as the public desired to know that he was 
indeed a preacher, he answered that he had never written a 
discourse in full, but that he always used headings, never 
trusting himself to purely extemporaneous addresses, and 
that he had over a thousand of these briefs, but he declined 
to make political capital out of his preaching, and refused to 
fill out one of his skeletons. 

Webster preserved the brilliant thoughts and illustrations 
that came to him in his study, on bits of paper, and kept 
them in a classified arrangement. Lamartine jotted down 
every good expression that he heard or read on any subject 
of interest to him, and strung them all like beads on a string. 
Adolph Thiers kept a large blank book in which he made 
such entries and into which he pasted clippings from the 
newspapers. Thiers was also regardless of the perfection 
of books; a passage that suited him he cut out as remorse- 
lessly as he would from a paper. He contended that he 
knew where to find it in his blank book but could find noth- 
ing in the library when he wanted it. His blank books at 
his death would have filled a wagon. Palmerston had 



390 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the faculty of treasuring every particle of valuable informa- 
tion that came to him. One sentence was not too small for 
him to preserve when it forcibly expressed a thought. Even 
a word, used in an original and stril^ing way, was caught 
by him and held in the talons of his all-embracing note-book. 
Garfield kept sci'ap books, in which he preserved, in the 
order in which they had been delivered, all of his public 
speeches. He also kept an elaborate index of everything he 
had ever read. Suppose one has been reading in Garfield's 
life; his brilliant invective against treason and the paragraph 
on coercion seems worthy of remembrance: 

"No statute was ever enforced without coercion; it is 
the basis of every law in the universe, human or divine. A 
law is no law without coercion behind it. You lev^y taxes, 
coercion secures their collection; it follows the shadow of 
the thief and brings him to justice; it lays its iron hand on 
the murderer, tries him and hangs him; it accompanies your 
diplomacy to foreign courts and backs the declaration of the 
nation's rights by a pledge of the nation's strength. But 
when the life of the nation is imperiled we are told it has no 
coercive power against the parricides in its own bosom." 
This, then is entered in the index thus: " Coercion under 
the Constitution; opinion of J. A. Garfield; speech in Con- 
gress on treason, April 8th, 1864, vol. — , page — ." This 
plan he followed with all the books he ever read. It gave 
him an exhaustless mine of information on a moment's 
notice. He hoarded every useful scrap from the newspapers, 
and noted the passing thought in his own mind that 
impressed him as valuable. With this vast array of knowl- 
edge at his finger's end, and tact enough to have what he 
needed in shape when a contest came on, he spoke with a 
wealth of information and glow of illustration which was 



JAMES A GARFIELD. 391 

unparalleled in the annals of Congressional debates. Web- 
ster was great on constitutional questions; Cla}^ was great 
on the problems involved in a compromise; but Garfield's 
name and fame can never be identified with any single ques- 
tion or measure, for he displayed the same ability on every 
question alike. He was a scholar in the broadest sense. 
His influence grew upon the country without consciousness 
of it on his part or the country's. He was continuously in 
Congress from the time of his first election until iS8o. It 
finally dawned upon the people as they read fragments of 
his speeches, as they were published in the papers, that he 
was the ripest scholar and maturest statesman in the national 
assembly. He was so radical in his opinions that he was 
always ahead of his party, and so much a patriot that he 
was frequently out of accord with his co-political leaders. 
1880 found him the most conspicuous figure in the Ameri- 
can government. He had gained his prominence by no sud- 
den flight, but " by toiling onward through the night." He 
delivered many addresses before colleges and was a frequent 
contributor to the magazines. His college addresses were 
earnest practical talks to young men. Many of the men 
now holding high positions in the various lines of service 
owe their inspiration to achievement to the encouragement 
of General Garfield. In an oration before the Commercial 
College at Washington City, on the " Elements of Success," 
he said: 

" I feel a profounder reverence for a boy than a man. I 
never meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling that I 
owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be 
buttoned up under his shabby coat. When I meet you in 
the full flush of mature life I see nearly all there is of you; 
but among these boys are the great men of the future— the 



392 THE GENIUS OF INDUtiTRT. 

heroes of the next generation, the philosophers, the states- 
men, the philanthropists, the great reformers and molders 
of the next age; therefore, I say, there is a peculiar charm 
to me in the exhibitions of young people engaged in the 
business of education. * * * Let me beg of you in the 
outset of your career to dismiss from your minds all idea of 
succeeding by luck. There is no more common thought 
among young people than that foolish one, that by and by 
something will turn up by which the}' will suddenly 
achieve fame or fortune. No, young gentlemen, things don't 
turn up in this world unless somebody turns them up. Iner- 
tia is one of the indispensable laws of matter, and things lie 
flat where they are until b}' some intelligent spirit (for noth- 
ing but spirit makes motion in this world) they are endowed 
with activity and life. Luck is an ignus fatuus. You may 
follow it to ruin, but not to success. The great Napoleon 
who believed in his destiny, followed it until he saw his star 
go down in blackest night, when the Old Guard perished 
round him, and Waterloo was lost. A pound of pluck is 
worth a ton of luck. 

" Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify, but nine times 
out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is 
to be tossed overboard and be compelled to sink or swim for 
himself. In all my acquaintance I have never known one to 
be drowned who was worth saving. This would not be 
wholly true in any countr}' but one of political equality like 
ours. In the aristocracy of the Old World, wealth and 
society are built up like the strata of rocks which compose 
the crust of the earth. If a bo}' be born in the lowest 
stratum of life, it is almost impossible for him to rise 
through this hard crust into the higher ranks; but in this 
countr}' it is not so. The strata of our society resembles 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 393 

rather the ocean, where every drop, even the lowest, is free 
to mingle with all others, and may shine at last on the crest' 
of the highest wave." 

In 1879 the Ohio Legislature elected General Garfield to 
the United States Senate, but he was never permitted to 
take his seat. In June of the following year he was nom- 
inated for the Presidency, and elected in November, defeat- 
ing General Hancock. He was inaugurated under the most 
auspicious omens. At once, on his election, the distracted 
arid restless spirit that had marked the political life of the 
country since the close of the rebellion began to subside. 
The turbulent elements of both parties seemed to have been 
touched by a controlling spirit of calmness. The whole 
country accepted his advent into power as a certain presage 
of vindicated justice and the maintenance of every right. 
The individuality of the man was impressed upon every 
citizen ; out of his generous nature flowed the dawn of peace 
and good will to a nation that had for twenty years lain 
under the shadow of party hatred and sectional antipathies. 
He exercised his personal influence upon the citizens of 
the Republic, and possessed their private confidence and 
public admiration, as he had done with the students at 
Hiram. It was the legitimate triumph of a life of honest 
industry and stainless integrity. 

On the second day of July, after his inauguration. Presi- 
dent Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau. The 
jury on the trial of the assassin declared him to be of sound 
mind; nevertheless the evidence showed clearly that he was 
smarting under his failure to receive an office he had insolent- 
ly demanded of the President. He was a man of boundless 
conceit, mad with his vanity and insane with his egotism. 
The civilized world was shocked at the assassin's deed. The 



394 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

nation wept. That flood of tears came nearer washing out 
Mason and Dixon's line than the deluge of blood sacrificed 
in the war. Animosities were forgotten, and all parties met 
in sympathy and sorrow, and said prayers at his bedside. 
But the bullet had done its fatal work; after lingering in 
a terrible agony, he finally expired on the 19th of September. 
As the nation turned from the close of the great and solemn 
rites at his funeral, his own words at Lincoln's death seemed 
to come with the singular force of assurance and prophecy: 
"God reigns, and the government at Washington still 
lives!" 





s^— 



cV^,~ 



^43—^ 





<^p^pj^]Oj^.^ 



If thou canst plan a noble deed, 

And never flag till it succeed, 

Though in the strife thy heart should bleed, 

Whatever obstacles control, 

Thine hour will come — go on, true soul! 

Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal. 



— Mackay. 



In helpless indecisions lie 
The rocks on which we strike and die, 
'Twere better far to choose the worst 
Of life's ways than to be accursed 
With indecision. Turn and choose 
Your way, then all the world refuse, 



— Joaquin Miller. 





IFE is not a dead level, with a humdrum routine of 
regularly recurring duties. It is a world of diver- 
sified features, over which active, earnest men in 
multitudes are deplo3'ing, through ravines, around ambus- 
cades, fording fierce rivers, resisting flank movements, and 
charging down the open field. Every step involves fresh 
perplexities; every movement reveals new obstacles which 
must be promptly met and conquered or they will conquer. 
The contest demands men of instantaneous power. The 
pushing wheels of time will not wait for the man who falters 
and hesitates, and whose constant cry is, "Time! tiriie to 
deliberate ! " They only roll for the man whose momentum 
of character is such that it swings off with them at the same 
speed and ease. They can brook no clogs. The soil they 
sweep over is virgin, and they scatter opportunities never 
offered before. In bold-cut characters victory appears at 
their figure-head, and with impatient rush they bound toward 
their goal. 

Mastery belongs to the men who perceive the relations of 
things at a glance — men who grasp the march of events, 
with all their immensity of details, dash them into the 



398 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

scales, weigh them, announce the result and their determina- 
tion in the case, before the world conceives of an advantage 
taken or an issue formed. Suppose such men do sometimes 
miss the mark as to judgment; they load and fire again 
before the target can be examined. Or, even if defeated, 
there is a ring of conquest in their defeat. Their rapid 
recognition of failure, and prompt withdrawal for another 
stroke, there or elsewhere, is often itself the insurance of 
victory. 

All men have the seeds of decision within them, and it is 
as capable of cultivation as any other faculty. Yet so few 
are characterized as decisive, that to be so is to be called 
great. It is indispensable to manl}' grandeur. Who ever 
heard of a great man being devoid of it.'' Nevertheless, it 
does not come to maturit}' without labor, and to some not 
without great travail. Dr. Adam Clarke and Jeremy 
Bentham, both mighty minds, were strangely deficient in 
decision. What the}' lacked by nature, however, they 
made up by assiduous training. They well knew that with- 
out this fortune-favoring trait the toil of their lives would be 
stamped with infirmit)'. Without a certain degree of prac- 
tical force, compounded of decision, which is the root, and 
wisdom, which is the stem, of character, life is abortive. 
Being may be compared to two bodies of water, one of 
which, stagnant and purposeless, is offensive to sentient life; 
the other, a swelling, pushing stream, is able to give motion 
to the machinery of a district. 

No man who lacked decision has ever made his mark in 
the world. Force of character is worth more to a man than 
all the learning Yale and Harvard are able to give him. A 
profound knowledge of the occult sciences given to a man 
who has no basic strength of character is much like planting 



DECISION. 399 

acorns in the sandy desert and expecting oaks to grow. 
There is no vitalizing power in tlie man. With his Intellect 
developed and his will-power dwarfed, he goes blundering 
through life in a hunchback sort of way, to be finally 
wrecked in some undertaking; while a man with half his 
brains and acquired lore, but who possesses decision, pushes 
ahead of him to victory. On the high shore of aspiration 
how many magnificent barks lie stranded. Hope, intellect, 
culture, intention, they had, but they perished, for they 
lacked strength of character. So repeatedly true is Jhis 
that the world has come to recognize it as a truism that all 
the great men are self-made men. It is true that conflicts 
with poverty and other adverse circumstances develop a 
sinewy determination that is scarcely obtainable in anj' other 
school. The strokes of outrageous fortune have created 
in many instances what all other training, and nature 
itself had not given. Men have trembled on the brink 
of every undertaking, until dire calamity forced them 
to act; then, when their clutched hammer descended, 
earth felt the stroke. Horace said he could decide on 
no course of life until poverty drove him to Virgil and 
to poetry. When the Archbishop of Toledo visited 
Madrid he expressed a desire to meet the learned Cer- 
vantes. He was told that Cervantes had borne arms in the 
service of his country, and was now old and poor. " What," 
exclaimed the Frenchman, " is not Senor Cervantes in good 
circumstances? Wh}' is he not maintained, then, out of the 
public treasury.? " "Heaven forbid! " was the reply, "that 
his necessities should ever be relieved, if it is those which 
make him write; since it is his poverty that makes the 
world rich." 

To give character the dignity which belongs to it one 



40t( THE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

must be swift to execute what he resolves upon. This is 
possible to all men, although not equally easy to all. The 
stature of perfect manhood is attained only by effort, and 
decision with many persons is their weak spot. Hence 
patience and labor must be expended to build up and 
strengthen this necessary qualification. No one is vested 
with all the faculties in perfection. No one is so clothed 
upon that every garment gratifies the eye by its beauty. 
Manhood is a growth; and will-power is an outgrowth of 
every thing else. It is the top blossom on the tree. When 
you behold it, lo, the season for fruit is at hand. Cultivate 
every quality, then, that can in any respect promote the 
prosperity of this. Clip the wings of your ambition, and 
train it to less pretentious flights. Dissipate not a good 
intention by thronging it about with a complex multitude of 
frivolous desires. Be not drawn aside just as you are mak- 
ing ready for the spring, by the fluttering of a fear or the 
bubbling up of a doubt. Let not decision be cheated of its 
crown by that trickster, Variety, ever eager and quick to 
leap into the place of an ascending rival. Play not the 
harlot with licentious Choice. Pause not for a clear way. 
Never leap into the dark. 

The ability to resolve and determine will come slowly at 
first. You will find yourself a thousand times mistaking 
desire and intention for it. Gradually the power will grow 
upon you. After a while the whole nature will undergo 
re-creation. All the conflicts of life will assume a different 
aspect. You will vanquish opposition in ,a way that once 
appeared impossible. You will surmount barriers heretofore 
impassable. You will covet difficulties on which you may 
whet your blade to a keener edge. You will take your place 
among those who manufacture the opinions and open up the 



DECISION. 401 

highways of mankind. The gods favor the men who know 
how to resolve. 

Promptness of decision is one of the first things to culti- 
vate in order to do away with that extravagant overgrowth 
of purpose that proves fatal to so many. Strength, which 
should be expended in deeds, is too frequentl}' lost in dreams. 
Day by day goes by occupied in idle reveries. Men oft fall 
into trances. They assume the clairvo3'ant state. With 
supple skill they construct a paradise of purposes. But their 
paradise is defective and they must mend it. Between im- 
practicable planning and actionless purpose they hang sus- 
pended between heaven and earth, like King Trisanco when 
the Brahmans said "rise!" and the gods of Swerga said 
"fall!" Thus thev busy themselves, hatching and patching, 
Until indignant life bursts upon them suddenl}', lashing them 
with a whip of scorpions. 

" Be wise to-day: 'tis madness to defer. 
Next day the fatal precedent will plead." 

Richter said that Luther's words were half-battles. This 
is because they were half-deeds. With him, to will was 
to execute; to speak was to act. He had thrown 
himself into the breach, to meet the spear of war or to drive 
the foe from the field. And whenever one does this, he ap- 
proaches the very summit of his being. If ever a man is 
godlike it is then. Destiny itself bends to his imperious 
will, and "fate seems strangled in his nervous "grasp." 
Under such promptings resolution crystallizes as quickly as 
water at zero. He moves along with intrepiditv. Every- 
thing that he touches is transmuted into power. Quicksand 
routes become granite; inaccessible mountains, inviting 
plains. Nature's forces crumble at his bidding. Human 
beings, under the spell of his magic, crouch at his feet, and, 



402 THE OEXIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

daring to scale the mountains which bar his pathway, he 
reaches even to the stars. 

A man's virtues are the greater part of his capital when 
dealing with destiny. There is power in uprightness of life 
before which nothing mean can stand. In it is a fire that 
burns awa}' the dross from one's own character. " Unless 
man can erect himself above himself, how poor a thing is 
man!" Honor and integrity both erect and uphold one; 
the}' give independence to action. One that fears not to sit 
in criticism upon himself and condemn each delinquenc}' is 
prepared to go out without hesitancy to others anfl admon- 
ish them; and one that can conquer himself stands a better 
chance to conquer others, for in his selfstruggle he has 
gained knowledge which he can utilize for the benefit of his 
fellows. 

Circumstances, also, are elements out of which character 
is compactly built. It used to be a question in our bo}'- 
hood, " Is man the creature of circumstance, or circum- 
stance the creature of man?" This is not the way to put 
it. Neither horn of the dilemma is either true or false. 
Each holds a half truth; sometimes we drive and sometimes 
we are driven. INIen are not alvva}'s equal to themselves, as 
respects circumstances. Some preserve their equilibrium 
much better than others, almost uniformly moulding their 
surroundings happily; but even with them there arise dark 
occasion upon which they are baffled and defeated. Even 
he who earned the right, if ever uninspired man did, to say, 
"Circumstances! I create ciixumstances! " found out his 
mistake at Waterloo. Neither are men equal to each 
other. " Our strength is measured b}' our plastic power," 
says Goethe's biographer. " From the same materials one 
man builds palaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another 



DECISION. 403 

villas. Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks unless the 
architect can make them something else. Thus it is that in 
the srtme family, in the same circuinstances, one man rears 
a stately edifice, while his brother, vaccillating and incom- 
petent, lives forever amid ruins. The block of granite which 
was an obstacle on the pathway of the weak becomes a 
stepping-stone on the pathway of the strong." 

There is no calling in which prompt decision is not some- 
times imperiously needed. If a man could always stay in 
his study, plan out his schemes in meditative moods, and 
then put them into execution, completing them in the solitude 
of his cell, all men would be heroes; but to go forth 
before the world with that quietly-planned project and under- 
take to execute it in the face of circumstances not counted 
on, and meet the coup-dc-main of some brilliant competitor, 
is quite another thing. There are times in the life of every 
man when a little flexibility of character is worth his repu- 
tation. It often occurs with actors that some mistake is 
made or a part is overdone; the gallery is pleased or dis- 
pleased b}- it, and the " gods " raise the yell. Not to be 
equal to the emergenc}' is ruin. When Sothern stumbled 
awkwardly on the stage, a hoot was raised. But he pos- 
sessed himself into quiescence, seeing he must make them 
believe it was acting. In the next scene he repeated it in 
a more lumbering way than before. This time he brought 
the house into his arms in a burst of applause, and he has 
been master of the situation ever since. There are un- 
looked-for opportunities arising constantly between disput- 
ants on the stump, where one by keeping his wits about him, 
and a ready tact, ma}' utterly demolish his opponent, when 
otherwise he would come off worsted. It is related of the 
late Judge Wilson that, when stumping it for Congress in 



40J: TUE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

one of the interior counties, liis competitor kept the audience 
in a roar of laughter at the Judge's expense. The Judge 
was no adept at this kind of warfare, and he felt that the 
day was against him. He solemnl}' advanced on the plat- 
form to reply, and poured out a half dozen of his ponderous 
sentences upon the audience, when his opponent pulled his 
coat-tails, whispering that he was sick, and wished to retire 
a moment. " Certainly,'' said the Judge, and commenced 
rolling out another leviathan sentence. It was about half 
gone when he appeared to notice, for the first time, his op- 
ponent facing the audience and hastening out b}' the aisle. 
He stopped short, threw back his portly self, and, with a 
rollicking laugh, shook his big hand at the hurr}"ing form, 
and shouted, ''He runs! He flies! He can't stand tire! 
He's sick!" 

At such a crisis as this a head crammed with unavailable 
learning is as useless as a loaded but fuseless bombshell. 
And what multitudes of men are placed in this predicament! 

Mark Twain being once toasted at a supper, rose with 
alacrity to respond. He replied: "I can talk! I can 
make a fine speech! In fact, I am eloquent! AVhy, I am 
an orator, but I haven't m}- orator)^ with me this evening; I 
left it at home." With Twain this would do; for the flashes 
of his silence, heightened as they are b_y his pantomime, 
sparkle with eloquence. But, on the whole, that which one 
does not bring along with him in life is poorly placed to be 
ready in an emergency. A physician often needs great 
decisiveness of character. Called to the bedside of one who 
is taken dangerously ill, and who is affrighted by possible 
death, he must be cool and collected as an ice-cr3-stal. The 
case demands heroic treatment both from the man and the 
medicine. Were a Brown-Sequard to falter in such an 



DECISION. 405 

instance for a moment, the consequence would be as fatal as 
if he were a tyro fresh from the medical school. A man 
must be read}' for emergencies. If not, nothing remains for 
him but to drop out of competition, like a broken-kneed 
horse on a race-track. Presence of mind and intrepidity of 
character are essentials to great success. Men must be sol- 
dier-like, and rest on their arms ready to spring up and fire 
on the instant. Dr. John Brown, in speaking of this qua-lity, 
well observes : " It is a curious condition of the mind that 
this requires. It is like sleeping with your pistol under 3'our 
pillow, and the pistol on full cock; a moment lost, and all 
ma}' be lost. There is the very nick of time. INIen, when 
they have done some signal feat of presence of mind, if 
asked how they did it, do not very well know — they just 
did it. It was, in fact, done, and then thought of; not 
thought of and then done, in which case it would likely never 
have been done at all. It is one of the highest powers of 
mind thus to act; it is done by an acquired instinct.'' 

The man who lacks this quality belongs to whoever may 
capture him. He always thinks of the right thing to do 
when the moment for action has passed. An English king 
has handed his name down to us as Athelstane the Unready. 
Those three words write his history. It is a trader's saying 
that an article is worth whatever it will bring; so, men are 
worth to themselves and the world the extent of their 
accomplishments. The world justly estimates men by their 
conquests, not by their assumed ability to conquer. The 
man who only half decides to-day, drifts into another course 
tomorrow, and the next day foregoes the matter altogether, 
is like a chip floating down the river, whirled by every eddy, 
halted by a floating leaf, and veered by every vagrant rip- 
ple; not the stern vessel that bears its great wheels against 



406 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the wave, and against current and storm drives on to its har- 
bor. Tlic character of such a dawdler ma}' be as spotless 
as that of Charles V of German}', who could, at one time, 
have crushed the Reformation; but it is so mixed with half 
heartedness and slowness of decision that, ere he suspects it, 
a mightier than himself has sprung up in his dominion, who 
will bind him hand and foot. A man is either to rule or be 
ruled; he must conquer or be conquered. Let him, then, 
arm himself to meet events as the}' change front and form, 
and muster them into his own service. 

When some one who by accident occupies a leading place, 
pro\es himself unfit at a critical hour, opportunity is given 
to subordinates. We have known cases in the army when 
sergeants by one ,deft stroke decapitated lieutenants and 
assumed the shoulder-straps. This is often done in legisla- 
tive assemblies. That courtly statesman, John Quincy 
Adams, would flash his brilliant saber through a serious prob- 
lem that was hanging in political contest, and render a ver- 
dict befoi'e the common statesman could comprehend the 
importance of the situation. Once, when party spirit ran 
high, and a rupture of the Union was imminent, on the con- 
vening of Congress the Clerk refused to call the House 
together. It was his duty to call the roll, ascertain if a 
quorum was present, and on his fa\"orable report the Speaker 
must formally declare Congress opened. Sectional feeling 
increased every moment, good men were becoming distressed 
in view of the significant consequences that would surely 
ensue. All knew the constitutional quorum was present, 
and yet one lawless hand was throttling the good purposes 
of a nation. Mr. Adams hastily arose, after a futile parley 
with the refractory Clerk, and moved that the " House of 
Representatives be declared convened." " But the Clerk 



DECISION. 407 

has not announced a quorum," cried the opposition, " and 
then there is no one to put the question." " / announce that 
there is a quorum," repHed Adams, " and / will see that this 
House is able to conve?ie itself.'" So saying, he mounted the 
desk and put the question. The convened Congress then 
proceeded to its .momentous duties. 

So it has happened in miHtary matters that one determined 
subordinate lias saved the da}'. Wlien the Httle armaments 
of Sparta and Athens found themselves completely sur- 
rounded by the navy of the Hellespont hero, they were ready 
to strike colors on the order. But Themistocles, in whose 
breast the achievements of Miltiades burned, urged upon 
Eurybiades the feasibilit}- and necessity of attacking the 
enemy. The Spartan chief scouted the idea of attacking 
such an overwhelmning armament, and, at last, indignant 
that he should thus be dictated to, raised his cane to strike 
the Athenian. " Strike," said Themistocles, " strike, but 
hear me.'''' Themistocles was heard. The attack was made, 
and the liberties of Greece were secured. 

It is particularly true on the field of battle that fortune 
alights on the standard of the general possessing prompt 
decision. It is true that many battles turn " on one or two 
rapid movements executed amid the whirl of smoke and 
thunder of guns that jar the solid globe." A genei-al will 
pour his iron phalanxes over a declivity according to his 
well-planned order of battle, but in nearly every instance the 
foe fails to present himself as expected. If he can change 
his whole plan under the shadow of the enemy's guns, and 
defile his sullen columns along a new path, taking the awful 
havoc of their shot and shell until his freshly manned lines 
are again formed, and then charge down upon the foe, few 
armies will be found able to withstand the newly formed 



408 THE GENIUS OF lynUSTIiT. 

front, and the added force of such movements. But it' he 
doggedly adheres to his old plan, and ^aits for Grouchy to 
come up and help him out, the wily foe will have the day. 

It was in such moments as these that the genius of Bona- 
parte shone forth in its highest luster. His mind, acting 
like lightning, never acted more rapidly and accurately than 
on the field of battle, when surrounded by smoke and car- 
nage, and the destiny of armies and nations was resting upon 
the result of a single charge. " Not until after the terrible 
passage of the bridge of Lodi did the idea shoot across my 
mind that I might become a decisive actor in the world's 
arena," says the matchless Corsican. The fl\-ing Austrians 
passed through the town of Lodi by the bridge over the 
Adda, where they had heav}- batteries posted on the oppo- 
site banks, with their range sweeping the bridge and town. 
To drive the enemy to his stronghold and then retire was 
to the mind of Bonaparte virtual defeat. To cross the bridge 
and rout the Austrians would be a victory signal and of vast 
importance. He announced to his officers that they would 
storm the bridge at once. " It is impossible," said one, 
" that any men can force their way across that narrow 
bridge, in the face of such a storm of balls as must be encoun- 
tered." "How impossible!" exclaimed Bonaparte; "that 
word is not French." 

He immediately dispatched a body of cavalry to lord the 
river at a crossing three miles above the town, which the 
Austrians had unaccountably neglected to protect, and 
ordered them to make a most desperate charge upon the 
rear of the eneni}'. He then assembled six thousand picked 
troops under shelter of one of the streets nearest the point 
of attack, and addressed them in his martial eloquence, until 
they clamored to be led to the assault. It was evening. 



DECISION. 409 

Not a breath of air rippled tlie smooth surface of that water, 
so soon to be dyed with the blood of these heroic men. 

The moment that Bonaparte's eagle eye percei\ed by the 
commotion among the Austrians that his cavalry had crossed 
the ford and were pressing on their rear, he ordered the 
trumpets to sound the charge. The line wheeled into solid 
column; then, bursting from their shelter in a full run and 
rending the air with their shouts, they rushed upon the 
bridge. They were met by a murderous discharge of 
artillery. The structure was swept as with a whirlwind. 
The whole head of the column was cut down like grass before 
the scythe. Still the surviving part of the column pushed 
on until it reached the middle of the bridge. Here it wav- 
vered. That volcanic burst of tire was too terrible for mor- 
tal inen to endure. Bonaparte saw the crisis had come; so, 
seizing a standard, he plunged through the clouds of smoke, 
and over the bleeding bodies to the head of the faltering 
column and shouted, "Follow your General." 

The mangled column, animated anew by this example, 
rushed with fixed bayonets upon the Austrian gunners. At 
the same moment the French cavalry came dashing upon 
the batteries in the rear, and the bridge was carried. The 
French army now poured across the narrow passage like a 
torrent, and deployed upon the plain. Still the battle raged 
with unmitigated fury. The Austrians hurled themselves 
upon the French with the energy of despair. But the troops 
of Bonaparte, intoxicated with their amazing achieveinent, 
set all danger at defiance, and seemed as regardless of bullets 
and shells as if they had been snow-balls in the hands of 
children. 

One battery remained impregnable, and dealt terrible 
havoc among the ranks of the French. Every effort to 



410 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

storm it had pro^'ed futile. An officer rode to Bonaparte, 
and cried, " Tliat battery will be our ruin." "Let it be 
silenced, then," said Bonaparte. Turning to a body of 
dragoons, near b}', he exclaiined, "Follow me." Off they 
flew to the impetuous charge, their leader ahead, through 
showers of grape-shot, carrj'ing mutilation and death into 
their ranks, and threw themselves, with a shout, upon the 
battery. The Austrian gunners were instantl}- sabered, and 
their guns turned upon the foiled and beaten foe 

This splendid achievement dismaA'ed Austria and inspired 
all France. This battle was won by a series of movements 
conceived under the ver}' guns of an o\'erwhelming foe, and 
executed with an awful celerit}', amid the whirl of smoke 
and deadly belch of rock-fortressed cannon. Bonaparte saw 
and grasped instantly the unprotected ford. lie risked tiie 
flower of his cavalry to disconcert the Austrian rear. He 
then, by his eloquence, fired his men to charge the bridge. 
All would have been lost again, when they halted on the 
bridge, if he had not on the spot decided that he, as standard- 
bearer, could renew their enthusiasm. And, finally, the 
immediatel}' conceived and instantly executed charge upon 
the " impregnable batter}' " crowned the climax of succes- 
sive manoeuvers, ever}' one of which was contrar}' to estab- 
lished tactics, taking the enemy completely by surprise, and 
winning the imperishable victory. '" This beardless youth," 
said an Austrian general, indignantly, " ought to have been 
beaten over and over again; for who ever saw such tactics! 
The blockhead knows nothing of the rules of war. To-day 
he is in our rear, to-morrow on our flank, and the next day 
again in our front. Such gross violations of the established 
usages of war are insufferable." 

At the close of his career Bonaparte was guilt}' of the 



DECISIO:f. 411 

same mistake of which he used to accuse the Austrians; he 
ceased to recognize the value of a moment. The swiftness 
of decision and promptness of action that had characterized 
him heretofore were wanting at Waterloo. With the 
failure to exercise this power at Waterloo he relinquished 
his prestige as the man of destiny, and was retired to the 
rocky retreat of St. Helena. 

Wellington's decisiveness and promptitude on the field 
manifested itself to the very end of his military life. For 
this reason he never lost a battle. Never, perhaps, did his 
promptness stand out so singularly grand as on the field of 
Waterloo, where he defeated Bonaparte, exterminated the 
French army, and shipwrecked the Empire. 

On the 15th of June the campaign began. Wellington 
was attending a brilliant ball, given b}' the Duchess of 
Richmond, at Brussels, when a courier suddenly entered and 
informed him that Bonaparte had crossed the frontier, and 
was within ten miles of Brussels. The Duke thought him 
to be reveling in the gayety of Paris. The energies of the 
Iron Duke were immediately aroused to their utmost tension. 
He hastily retired with all his officers. Bugles sounded, 
drums beat, soldiers rallied, and the whole mighty host, 
cavalry, artillery, infantry and field trains, were in an hour 
careering through the dark and flooded streets of Brussels. 
To Quatre-Bras, fifteen miles awa}', a point of eminent 
importance, Wellington hastened. For three da3-s it had 
rained. Through the whole nigiit the inundation of war 
rolled along the road. Ne}-, to whom Bonaparte had said, 
" Enter Quatre-Bras this night at all hazards: the destiny of 
France is in your hands,'''' slumbered on his arms a few 
hours, and from the heights, next morning at early dawn. 



412 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

saw the smoke of Wellington's camp-fires quietly encircling 
that key to victory. 

Bonaparte pushed his own forces on to Ligny, where he 
encountered Blucher and gave the Prussians what Welling- 
ton called "an awful threshing." While the victorious 
Bonaparte rested eight hours, giving the defeated Prussians 
time to flee to Wavre, and collect their forces for another 
battle, the wily Wellington grasped his opportunity and 
rushed to Waterloo on a line parallel to that taken by his 
retreating allies. Here he selected his ground, entrenched 
himself, and then deco3'ed Bonaparte to this, his only 
unshattered enemy, for a last conflict. The next da}' at 
eleven o'clock Bonaparte opened fire, b,ut it was on an 
enemy vastly reinforced, and who had occupied every hour 
in perfecting his intrenchments. Jerome's division hurled 
itself against Hougoumont. Column after column swept 
down the ridge and assailed it with fiery valor; " but it was 
like butting their heads against a wall." In a few hours 
forty thousand of the combatants were weltering in their 
gore. The field was swept with an unintermitted storm of 
balls, shells, bullets and grape-shot, while enormous masses 
of cavalry, influent and refluent surges, trampled into the 
blood}' mire the dying and the dead. The two generals 
from their lofty positions sur\e3'ed these stubborn, terrible 
charges, and felt that the destiny of Europe hung on the 
issue of that day's battle. 

In the midst of these awful scenes, as portions of Welling- 
ton's lines were giving wa}', and when Bonaparte felt sure 
or ^'ictor3^ the quick eyes of both generals discerned an 
immense mass of men. more than thirty thousand strong, 
emerging from the forest, and with rapid steps deploying 
upon the plain. The Emperor was sanguine that it was 



DECISION. 413 

Marshal Grouchy, and that the battle was decided. The 
Duke was sure it was Blucher hastening from Wavre with 
his recuperated forces, according to their agreement. 
Another moment and the artillery balls began to plow the 
Emperor's ranks and he knew it was Blucher come to the 
rescue of Wellington. 

Then it was in the madness of despair he ordered the Old 
Guard to the charge. But what could this feeble band now 
do to stem such a torrent.^ " The allies were pouring, wave 
after wave, across the plain; five squares of the French were 
broken and cut to pieces; and now the effect produced on 
the rest of the French army b}' the repulse of the Guard 
and the sudden onslaught of Zieten was completed b}' the 
general advance, for which Wellington, with the instinct of 
genius, suddenly forsook his attitude of defense; and, as 
Blucher 's ^•ictorious legions were pouring across the sole 
line of retreat, while the last reserves of the French had 
been exhausted, the defeat was turned into a panic and a 
rout unparalleled in history." 

The eagle was no longer in the keeping of the gods, 
because Bonaparte no longer acted with decision and prompt- 
ness. The Bonaparte of Lodi would ha^"e pursued the 
Prussians between Ligny and Wavre, and annihilated them, 
and then, having united with Grouchy, would have fallen 
on Wellington like a thunderbolt and utterly ruined the 
allied forces. Or, failing to unite with Grouchy, he would 
have fallen on Wellington at sunrise, as he did on the allied 
forces at Austerlitz, and have routed and scattered him 
before eleven o'clock. This he did not do. Wellington, 
whose decision and promptness never failed him, was aston- 
ished at Bonaparte's letharg}', and with unerring celerity 
took advantage of it. He then forced Bonaparte to fight 



ili THE GENIUS UP INDUSTRY. 

him in liis own well selected and strongly fortified position. 
He avoided battle as long as possible, thus giving his allies 
opportunity to draw near him, and render assistance if neces- 
sary-. Finally, Blucher appeared at the critical moment, 
when Wellington, with consummate adroitness, forsook his 
attitude of defense, and ordered the consolidated lines to 
advance, withdrawing, however, his mutilated corps from 
the fiercest points of the onset. The French threw their 
desperate and shattered squares against that fresli and solid 
mass of guns and men in vain. Tliey went clown like the 
cities of the plain under the fire rained from Hea\en. Wel- 
lington won Waterloo b}' his superior tact and decision, and 
sent the maker of thrones and princes weeping to Paris. 

Men who make a great ado are not generall}' capable of 
iron decisions. It is in this that blusterers exhibit their 
incapacit}-. Sir Philip Sidney was the pattern to all Eng- 
land of a perfect gentleman, and also for decision of char- 
acter. Bonaparte undertook the conquest of Russia with 
less ado than half the merchants when they lay in their 
spring stock of goods. Stonewall Jackson and General 
Sherman, men of quickness of perception and rare determi- 
nation, were very quiet about all their undertakings. An 
illustration of the Iron Duke's characteristic qualities is the 
reply which he is said to ha\'e made when in danger of ship- 
wreck. It was bed-time, when the captain of the vessel, in 
great affright, came to him and said, " It will soon be all 
over with us." "Very well," was the reply, "then I shall 
not take off my boots." 

Decision of mind needs to have united to it a determina- 
tion to accomplish a laudable undertaking. It not unfre- 
quently occurs that men endowed with great natural decision 
of character fritter their energies away on unworthy objects. 



DECISION. 415 

Beau Brummel had as much natural resolution as Julius 
Crcsar, but he put it all into the adjustment of his cra^"at ; 
Nero had as much as Themistocles, but he used it to despoil 
his country; and Charles Lamb evinced more determina- 
tion when he spent weeks dictating a humorous letter to a 
friend than Walter Scott exhibited when he was throwing 
off fort}' pages of Waverly per day. A noble aim is neces- 
sary to bring out the worth of decision. 

Literary men are more apt to lack decision than men who 
have to deal with armies or even ordinary practical business 
matters. A melancholy example of this is furnished by the 
life of Thomas DeQuince}', who, his famous eulogist has 
said, " possessed one of the most potent and original spirits 
that ever dwelt in a tenement of clay." At an early age 
he conceived a profound contempt for his pompous tutor, 
and when his guardians refused to permit him to leave the 
Manchester pedant, he ran away at night with a copy of an 
English poet in one pocket, and nine pla3's of Euripides in 
the other, and began his wanderings. Sometimes he stopped 
in fine hotels; sometimes his supper was composed of berries, 
and then under the shade of a haystack he mused himself 
to sleep counting the stars. Soon after this his relati\es 
started him to school, and in two years' time his progress 
had been so rapid that we hear his classical professor say- 
ing to a stranger, "That boy could harangue an Athenian 
mob better than j'ou or I could address an English one." 
Shortly after this, when he fancied the learned Bishop of 
Bangor had given him an insult, we find him gravely weigh- 
ing the propriety of addressing the distinguished prelate a 
remonstrance in Greek. He went to Oxford to be examined 
for admission, and passed the first daj^'s trial so triumph- 
antly that one of the examiners said to a resident of Wor- 



416 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

cester College: "You have sent us to-da}^ the cleverest 
man I ever met; if his viva voce examination, to-morrow, 
correspond with what he has done in writing, he will carrv 
every thing before him." DeQuincey, however, did not wait 
to be questioned further; but, for some reason — it may have 
been, as usual, without any reason — he pa'cked his trunk 
and walked away from Oxford, never to return. He now 
began to apply himself seriously to study, having broken up 
his opium habit. At thirty we find him a thorough scholar. 
His mind seemed to be a vast magazine, admirably arranged ; 
every thing was there, and ever}- thing was in its place. 
Scholars and literati sought him, for he was a li\'ing c\'clo- 
pedia. He was accurate; his judgments on men, on sects, 
on books, he had carefully tested and weighed, and then 
committed each to its proper receptacle in the most capaci- 
ous and accurately constructed memory that any human 
being ever possessed. No man e\er went to DeQuincey 
and asked for any thing that was not to be found in that 
immense storehouse. His essa3'ist has said: "At once 
colossal and keen, DeQuince3'''s intellect seems capable of 
taking the profoundest view of inen and things, and of dart- 
ing the most piercing glances into details; it has an eagle's 
eye to gaze at the sun, and the eye of a cat to glance at 
things in the dark; is quick as a hawk to pounce upon a 
brilliant falsehood, 3'et as slow as a ferret to pursue a sophism 
through all its mazes and sinuosities. Now meditative in 
gentle thought, and anon sharp in analytic criticism; now 
explaining the subtle charm of Wordsworth's poetry, and 
again unraveling a knotty point in Aristotle, or cornering a 
lie in Josephus ; to-day, penetrating the bowels of the earth 
with the geologist; to-morrow, soaring through the stellar 
spaces with the astronomer — it seems exactly fitted for 



DECISION. 417 

every subject it discusses, and reminds you of the ele- 
phant's lithe proboscis, which with equal dexterit}' can 
uproot an oak or pick up a pin." Of this universalit\; of his 
genius one who knew him well says that in theolog}' his 
knowledge was equal to that of two bishops; in astronomy 
• he outshone Professor Nichol ; in chemistry he could out- 
dive Samuel Brown; and in Greek excite to jealously the 
shades of Porson and Samuel Parr. In short, to borrow an 
illustration of Macaulay, it is hardly an exaggeration to say 
■of the Opium Eater's intellect, that it resembled the tent 
"which the fairy Paribanou gave to Prince Ahmed — " Fold 
it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lad}-; spread it, and 
the armies of powerful sultans might repose beneath its 
shade." 

This man, who was conscious of his vast acquisitions, who 
knew himself to be the lion of learning, who said that he 
" lived on earth the life of a demi-urgus, and kept the ke3's 
of paradise," was thus preparing himself and for fifty-four 
long years getting ready to write a work on human intellect. 
But such was his imbecility for carrying his lofty concep- 
tion into prompt execution that, after all the material had 
been gathered on the grounds, he did not lay the first stone 
of the superstructure. He could not sacrifice present incli- 
nations to his grand ulterior purpose. He wrote that won- 
derfully curious production, " The Confessions of an Opium 
Eater." He wrote on Pope and Shakspeare, on " Political 
Economy " and " Fun," " Criticisms," " Philosophical Es- 
says," and " Biographical Sketches." Between these and 
talking nature to Wordsworth, transcendentalism to Cole- 
ridge, prose drudger}' to Southey, walking with " peripatetic 
Stewart," joking with Charles Lamb, poking fun at George 
Dj-er, and damning the literary world with Hazlitt, he passed 



418 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

his years until seventy-three, and was taken to his death-bed 
still hoping to have time to vi^rite his immortal work on the 
human intellect. Thus lived and died one of the most bril- 
liant but impotent intellects the sun ever shone upon, his life 
frittered away by reason of his indecision and lack of prompt- 
ness. 

Let no man delude himself with the belief that he will 
ultimately do much who is spending his present 3'ear on work 
of a third-rate character, neither worthy of his abilities nor 
justifying even in a moderate degree the expectations of his 
friends. The fatal defect of these years will fasten upon him 
like the grasp of a vise, and when the promised days of great 
undertakings come, he will find himself without inclination 
or ability to perform. The greater part of all the mischief 
in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently 
understand their own aims. Let a man decide early upon 
what he wishes to do, and for what his talents fit him; and 
then, like Franklin, let him put his mind continualh' into it. 

There are times when one should consider long and well 
before he renders a decision. In choosing a business or decid- 
ing on a place to carry on that business, there are many con- 
flicting interests to be considered, many delicate points to be 
examined and weighed; surrounding circumstances are to be 
put in the scale, and one's own health and culture become 
controlling factors. Under all conditions it is preferable to 
take time for consideration — a reasonable time — before the 
ininc^ is permitted to render its verdict. The man who does 
tjiis habitually, who decision is a fixity, will find that when 
the avalanche of circumstances is hurled upon him, on some 
great occasion, the imminence of the moment will quicken 
alj, his faculties, and that a year's deliberate thought will 
drive through his brain on the instant, somewhat as memory 



DECISION. 



419 



comes back to a drowning man. At such times vast concep- 
tions take form with facility. All the details of execution 
gather together, in rank and file, read}' for action ; and when 
that sort of thing occurs, decide without dela}', sound the 
charge, and shout, with Wellington, " Up Guards! and at 
them." 





^Tj;p]4^]^ c^. vncil^^?>■ 



Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain, 

Prevent the long aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant, whilp they rend the chain, 

These constitute he state, 

— Sir Williim Jones, 




|[fepki> }u j\o\\^\f 




T is interesting to notice in the struggles which have 
convulsed our country and tried our institutions, how 
so many of the men who have been laborers in 
these great scenes did not come upon the arena filtered 
through generations of scholars and statesmen, but came 
unheralded, save with the advantages which a democratic 
republic offers to every citizen. 

The majority of the foremost men of America in 
every calling are the legitimate sons of democracy. That 
hard Spartan mother trained them early on her black broth 
to her fatigues, and wrestlings, and watchings, and gave them 
their shields on entering the battle of life with onl}- the Spar- 
tan mother's brief: " With this, or upon this." Native 
force raised Clay to the position of the leader of a great party ; 
business sagacity supported by an unbending purpose made 
Greene a capitalist; moving under the behests of kindred 
qualities created Stewart a merchant prince; the aggressive 
advocacy of a great principle enthroned Lincoln, the world's 
ideal of a pure statesman; and the working of the same gen- 
erous laws, that permits each toiler to carve a destiny for 
himself, saw Stephen A. Douglas write his name with the 
deathless erreat. 



422 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTMT. 

The early years of Mr. Douglas present a fair average of 
advantages and struggles incident to the American youth. 
His father, Dr. Stephen A. Douglas, resided at Brandon, 
Vermont, w^here, on the 23d of April, 18 13, Stephen was 
born. Sitting one day with his infant son, now two months 
old, and his daughter on his lap, the Doctor, without warning, 
died suddenly of disease of the heart. An unmarried 
brother living on a farm, kindly took his widowed sister and 
her two children to his home. Young Stephen received the 
training accorded to farmer boys. He worked on the farm 
after arriving at a proper age, in the summer season, and 
attended the district school in the winter. About the time 
he reached his fifteenth year, he became anxious to enter 
the academy, in order that he might prepare for college. 
He had always looked to his uncle as a child to a father, 
scarcely recognizing that he was not his father, and asked 
for the means to defra}' his expenses at the academy. His 
uncle had married some time previous, and an heir had been 
born in his own house, whose advent naturally disarranged 
all the old plans. 

There had been an understanding in the family that as 
Stephen had no estate, he should be educated and given 
that which, If he had the metal of a man, would be of more 
value than a patrimony. The proposed education having 
grown upon Stephen ever since his earliest recollection, it 
never occurred to him that his uncle's marriage changed 
their respective relations. His uncle treated him affec- 
tionately, and remonstrated against the foil}' of abandoning 
the farm for the uncertainties of a profession, and gently 
intimated that his own children would require his chief 
financial attention. Stephen's eyes were now opened to his 
real condition in life. His mother had a few hundred dol- 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 423 

lars, but he refused to accept that, for the time would 
possibly come when she would need it, and he could not 
repay it. He saw that, if he remained on the farm until he 
was twenty-one, as the family desired, he would then be 
turned out upon the world without either a trade or a pro- 
fession. He therefore decided, as his mother and sister for 
the present had a good home with his uncle, that he woiild 
go to town and learn a trade, as the most certain means of 
earning a support. He accordingly told the families his 
decision, and on the following morning bid good-bye to the 
relations, and with a sad but determined heart started to 
Middlebur}'. Before night he was regularly indentured as 
an apprentice. 

He worked here for two years, and displayed remarkable 
mechanical skill as a cabinet maker; especially in the finer 
parts of the work he exhibited artistic taste. He developed 
a love for the work that amounted almost to a passion; he 
was as greatly given over to choice bits of cabinet art as 
Stephenson to his steam engine. But the small and delicate 
physical frame of the young mechanic was unable to bear 
the continued labor of the shop. The thought of abandon- 
ing the trade in which all his hope and pride had been 
centered, came to him as a cruel blow. He worked on, 
going to the shop when he was scarcely able to walk there, 
cherishing the hope that his illness was onl}' temporary, and 
finally abandoned it only at the command of his physician. 

There is in a mechanical calling, to a man who has a gift 
for it, something quite as fascinating as the professions. 
Very few men who have risen from the shop to the forum 
but have looked back to the early da}'s in their trade as the 
happiest season of their years. Elihu Burrit never lost his 
love for the anvil. He had a tendency to dig into languages, 



424 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

but as great a passion to hammer iron into horse-shoes. 
Robert Collyer says, if it wasn't for the good he tries to do 
in the pulpit, he would still be found at the old stand blow- 
ing the forge. Brown, the shoemaker, was of the opinion 
that " a good mechanic was the most independent man in 
the world." He always has a market for his wares, and if 
ordinarily diligent he may be useful, live free from care, 
supporting his family in comfort with a small saving each 
week, which in their turn add confidence and happiness to 
his toil. 

Hugh IVIiller, after fifteen years as a journe}-man stone 
mason, giving his experience, says: "Let me state, for it 
seems to be very much the fashion to draw dolorous pictures 
of the condition of the laboring classes, that from the close 
of the first year in which I worked as a journeyman until I 
took final leave of the mallet and chisel, I never knew what 
it was to want a shilling; that my two uncles, m^' grand- 
father and the mason with whom I served my apprentice- 
ship — all workingmen — had had a siinilar experience; and 
that it was the experience of my father also. I can not 
doubt that deserving mechanics ma}^ in exceptional cases, 
be exposed to want ; but I can as little doubt that the cases 
are exceptional, and that much of the sufl^ering of the class 
is a consequence either of improvidence on the part of the 
competently skilled, or of a course of trifling during the 
term of apprenticeship, quite as common as trifling at 
school, that alwavs lands those who indulge in it in the 
hapless position of the inferior workmen." 

The force of merit makes its way in the shop as in the 
profession. It is only merit that maintains its success in any 
calling. There ma}*, in long intervals, be a case of merit 
that adverse circumstances never permit to come to prefer- 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 425 

ment, but these examples are rare. The demands of every 
industry call skill to the front, and the mechanics of our 
country are now placed on so high a scale that a skilful 
workman earns more per year than the average lawyer or 
ph3-sician. jNIechanics is no longer blind toil in physical 
strength, but it is the art of supplementing the muscles of 
the body with the sense of the brain. To do this deftly is 
skill. No common lout can be a railroad engineer. Any 
man can oil the engine and pull the throttle open and shut, 
but the clear eye, the steady nerve, and the trusty judgment 
on whose instantaneous decisions the peril of a thousand lives 
are suspended every da}', are the distinguishing marks that 
make the engineer — and give him his handsome salary. 
The openings to fields of usefulness and renown in mechan- 
ics are quite as inviting as in an}' other sphere of lite. They 
carry with them the additional assurance of large financial 
compensations. 

Pullman was an ordinary mechanic; but he accepted the 
invitation of his brain, and gave the world his palace cars, 
which make traveling no longer a drudge; and a patroniz- 
ing public has made him a millionaire. So McCormick 
worked with farm machinery, until he "fell " on to the idea 
of the mower and reaper. He pursued it with the labor of 
his own hands until he brought the famous har\-ester to per- 
fection, and never abandoned the general superintendence of 
the "work." Like Pullman, it has brought him name and 
wealth. John Sineaton, the great engineer, rebelled against 
being educated to the law, for which place his father, a bar- 
rister, intended him. Finally, from the persistent failure at 
school, the father was persuaded to let the boy have his 
way. The hum of machinery was music to his ear. A 
complicated piece of mechanism was his delight. He would 



426 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

work over a boy's drag-cart with all the enthusiasm Raphjel 
ever threw into his brush. He had a mechanical inclina- 
tion. He also had an industry which was equal to his 
abilit}'. A predilection is of little value unless this motor 
accompanies it. Smeaton paid such an intelligent attention 
to mechanics that a member of the Royal Societ}' proposed 
him for membership, to which he was unanimously elected. 
When the Eddystone lighthouse fell the third time this 
same member recommended him to the Government as a 
man who could defy the waves and build a lighthouse that 
would stand. He was commissioned to that important 
task, and completed the wonderful engineering feat to the 
satisfaction of sailors, and the admiration of all builders. 
Wedded to his trade, as the old painter to his works, Mr. 
Smeaton never consented to rest on his reputation or revel 
in his accumulated wealth, but up to the last da3-s of a long 
life he visited his shops and superintended his works, often 
constructing the more delicate and intricate parts himself, for 
the very love of it, conscious of what he could accomplish at 
his trade and ambitious to hew along its rough way results 
like some of the great toilers who had moved before him in 
mechanics. 

Young Douglas felt that a shadow had settled over 
his life. Thoughts of an education now began to return 
to him. The young man who seeks a profession because a 
trade is not dignifying is not very likely to dignify a profes- 
sion. Colleges are being filled with the sons of farmers and 
mechanics preparing to become professional men. Many of 
these have no definite promptings toward any learned 
calling. A desire to avoid calloused hands is the spur 
to their studies. They are doomed to a half-star^'ed busi- 
ness and a career of perpetual disappointment. If the}' had 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 427 

opened their sails to the breeze of nature they would ha\-e 
been landed in a less toilsome vocation, and one eminently 
more satishing and paying. 

When Stephen A. Douglas left the cabinet shop with 
tearful eyes he showed the metal of the boy. He was pos- 
sessed of a vigorous ambition, but not a foolish longing for 
vain glory. He had a quenchless desire to succeed in his 
undertaking. Genuine ambition moves the worker to heroic 
exertions at his calling, fills him with a thirst for all knowl- 
edge that pertains to it, and drives him on to the attainment 
of its highest excellence. An ambition short of this is a 
weak and hollow vanit}', that builds without excellence, 
that seeks without knowledge, and asks renown without the 
heroism of toil. The qualities of Douglas with the plane 
were the qualities of Jean Paul's sentiment, to "make as 
much out of himself as could be made out of the stuff"." 

Stephen now sought to make arrangements to enter the 
academy of his native town. By economy of the most 
marked character he had saved sufficient money from his 
two years apprenticeship to pay his way at this school for 
one year. He returned to Brandon and began his studies. A 
few weeks of visiting and rest had recuperated his energies, 
so he was enabled to pursue his studies with his wonted 
enthusiasm. His mind was well stored with general inform- 
ation. His father was a gentleman of learning and had 
collected an extensive librar}'; from this Stephen had found 
instruction almost as valuable as a course in the academy. 
He was a rapid reader and possessed a most retenti\-e 
memory. Pitt's feat of listening six hours to debate without 
taking a note and replying to the speakers and their argu- 
ments seriah')/?, came through long years of practice. The 
burning zeal of Douglas to obtain knowledge answered in his 



i28 THE GENIUS OF IKDUSTMT. 

case the place of years of training. What he read he never 
forgot. AVliat was once told him never needed a repeti- 
tion. 

While working at his trade, worn out when evening came 
on, he would lie on his bed and read until long alter his mas- 
ter's household were all asleep. The knowledge of history 
and philosophy thus gained he was enabled to use years af- 
terward in his speeches. Few people are able to read man}' 
books to profit. Hazlitt could not, neither could Coleridge, 
but Dr. Johnson devoured books as he did beefsteak, in quan- 
tities that perplexed his house keeper. Most persons read 
more than they are ever able to utilize, and it lays on their 
minds a burdensome mass, disorganizing the things the}' do 
know. Knowledge is power, but it must be knowledge that 
can be used. 

In the meantime the widow Douglas had married Gehazi 
Granger, and Stephen, at the earnest solicitation of his mother 
and step-father, removed with them to their home near Can- 
andaigua, New York. He at once became a student in the 
academy at that place. This was an institution that had for 
half a century supported a reputation for thoroughness of course 
second to none in the country. A large number of eminent 
professional men and statesmen had received their collegiate 
training here; from it the young student had hope of com- 
pleting the education he had dreamed of so tbndl}' in his earl- 
ier days. Mr. Granger was not a gentleman of means, but 
he treated his stepson with a generosity he could scarcely 
aftbrd, keeping him at his house and supplying all his wants 
during the three years Stephen attended the academy. The 
son proved himself worthy of his fatherly consideration. An 
energy was given to the school course that gave him first 
rank in recitations and proficiency ; during this period he was 



STEPHEX A. DOUGLAS. 429 

also a student in HubbelPs la\v office. At that time New 
York required a course of seven 3-ears to entitle a student to 
be admitted to practice law, four j'ears of which might be 
occupied in classical studies. 

Mr. Douglas on an examination of his course of stud}- was 
allowed a credit of three years for his classical attainments, 
leaving four years only as the period which he would be re- 
quired to continue as law student to admit him to the bar of 
the State. He now turned his attention directly to the study 
of law, in the evenings and through the day, taking his 
rest and recreation in a change of study, by pursuing his col- 
legiate course. At the end of the four years he had mastered 
the remainder of the curriculum so that he could have passed 
examination. Doug'las fitted the description gi\'en b}' Beau- 
mont of De Tocqueville: " His nature was wholly averse to 
idleness, and whether he was traveling or resting, his mind 
was alwa}'s at work." Industry is one of the richest gifts of 
nature; without it genius is barren of worthy fruit, and with 
it mediocrity becomes lustrous. Tocqueville himself wrote 
to a friend: "There is no time of life at which one can 
wholly cease from action; for effort without one's self, and 
still more, effort within, is equalh' necessary, if not more so', 
when we grow old, as it is in youth. I compare man in this 
world to a traveler journe3'ing without ceasing towards a 
colder and colder region; the higher he goes, the faster he 
ought to walk. The great malady of the soul is cold. And 
in resisting this formidable evil, one needs not only to be sus- 
tained by the action of a mind employed, but also by contact 
with one's fellows in the business of life." 

In England it is considered quite a feat of toil, and triumph 
of intellect, for one of humble origin to rise to the House of 
Commons and take his seat side b}' side with the hereditary 



430 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

gentry of the land. When Brotherton, discussing in true 
pathos the hardships of the workmen in the factories, de- 
tailed his own struggles there, Sir James Graham, amid the 
cheers of the House, announced that he was proud to sit with 
a man who had worked his way from so humble a beginning. 
In our country the labor and the attainments necessar}^ to 
obtain public recognition are incomparably less than in the 
lands of hereditary caste. Nevertheless the most illustrious 
achievements wrought by the citizens of the old world have 
been the handiwork of names that bore no coat of arms. 

A heraldic title is a banner handed down to tell what the 
family have done; the plain and homely John Jones is a carte- 
blanche., on which to exhibit what can be done. The owner 
of the unadorned name knocks at the door of attainments, 
and if refused admittance, batters it down by a chcf-cToeuvre., 
and pushes on to its sublime achievements; the titled usually 
send up their cards, and if denied entrance go off on a fox 
chase. 

The spurs have always been worn b}' the workers; wealth 
and illustrious ancestrage are only a favorable introduction 
to opportunity. To seize the opportunity is everything. 
The toiler, who has nothing to rely upon but his work and 
his wits, is keenly alive to the tide that rises in the affairs of 
men, and makes the best of whatever comes to his hands. 
"Work and wit of his own hand and head," Humphrey 
Davy said, " was what had made him what he was." An 
e3'e to the main chance, like Vanderbilt, and an earnestness 
that would accept the most trifling stepping stone and build 
it into a tower, brought Pierre Ramus to scholarship and 
authority. He was the son of poor parents in Picardy, and 
when a boy, was employed to tend sheep. But not liking 
sheep tending he ran away to Paris. After passing through 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 431 

great miser}', he entered the College of Navarre as a ser- 
vant. The situation opened to him the road to learning, 
he accepted it with all the sacrifices and demands it made 
upon him, and shortly became one of the most distinguished 
men of his time. A writer tells of " the chemist Vauquelin, 
the son of a peasant of St. Andre d'Herbetot, in the Cal- 
\ados. When a boy at school, though poorly clad, he was 
full of bright intelligence; and the master who taught him 
to read and write, when praising him for his diligence, used 
to say, 'Go on, my boy; work, study, Colin, and one day 
you will go as well dressed as the parish church warden! ' " 
A country apothecary who visited the school admired the 
robust boy's arms, and offered to take him into his labora- 
tory to pound the drugs, to which Vauquelin assented, in 
the hope of being able to continue his lessons. But the 
apothecary would not permit him to spend any part of his 
time in learning; and on ascertaining this, the youth immedi- 
ately determined to quit his service. He therefore left St. 
Andre and took the road for Paris with his haversack on 
his back. Arrived there, he searched for a place as apothe- 
cary's boy, but could not find one. Worn out by fatigue 
and destitution, Vauquelin fell ill, and in that state was taken 
to the hospital, where he thought he should die. But better 
things were in store for the poor bo}^ He recovered, and 
again proceeded in his search for employment, which he at 
length found with an apothecary. Shortly after he became 
known to Fourcroy, the eminent chemist, who was so pleased 
with the youth that he made him his private secretary; and 
many years after, on the death of that great philosopher, 
Vauquelin succeeded him as Professor of Chemistry. 
Finally, in 1829, the electors of the district of Calvados 
appointed him their representative in the Chamber of Depu- 



432 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

ties, and he re-entered in triumpli the village which he had 
loll so man}- years befoi^e so poor and so obscure. 

The re-election of General Jackson took place in 1S32, 
while Mr. Douglas was attending his law studies. The 
animated condition of politics in that campaign infused some 
of its heat into man\" \'oung men who were not 3"et voters. 
Douglas was caught by the nation's wide deluge of dis- 
cussion, and became imbued with the Jacksonian side of 
politics, as thoroughl}' as he had been enrapt in his legal 
studies. He never ventured a public address during the 
campaign, but he was a ceaseless talker whenever he could 
find social listeners. It was during this time he united with 
a debating club and made his first speeches. These debates 
were remarkable chiefly lor the information and the impas- 
sioned earnestness displayed b}' the }"oung orator. 

A gentleman who was a fellow student with Douglas at 
that time, says: "He was recognized and admitted to be 
the politician of the circle; and though the students were of 
all political parties, to Douglas was conceded the distinction 
of being the best posted student in the place. Indeed, a 
taste for politics was evidenced at an early da^•. It is stated 
that one of his earliest essaj's in behalf of the Denrocratic 
party was the organization of a band of 'Jackson boys ' in 
Vermont, who proclaimed a war upon the ' Coffin hand- 
bills,' and who managed to destroy those placards as soon 
as the}' appeared on the walls and fences of the town." 

In June, 1833, Mr. Douglas, then twenty years of age, 
left Canandaigua to earn his own livelihood. He had no 
definite location selected. He saw the crowded condition 
of the professions in the East, and believed there was 
unclaimed territory for energy and industry in the valley of 
the.lNIississippi. Provided with a small sum of mone}' and 



STEPHEN' A. DOUOLAS. 433 

two suits of clothes, he once more bid home adieu, and took 
his course westward. 

From liis earhest childliood Mr. Douglas had subsisted on 
some friend's generosity, knowing that it might be with- 
drawn at any time. He had grown up with a continued 
sense that he must be self-dependent; that this kindness 
could not extend farther than the years of youth. It was 
the kindly hand that was tempering him for any fate. He 
grasped his carpet satchel and with his few dollars started 
through the open gate of self-reliance, without a regret or a 
fear. Disabled by the kick of a horse and confined to the 
house for some time Walter Scott decided he would become 
an author. His friends thought he had better stay in the 
quartermaster's department. But he threw himself into the 
work with such vigor that in three days he had composed 
the first canto of " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," which he 
shortly after finished — his first great work. From this he 
wrote resolutely on, turning off more pages of manuscript 
each day than any man who has ever written. Douglas 
made a virtue of his necessity and turned to his self-depend- 
ence with a cheery confidence. There are some natures 
that the knowledge of necessity turn to cowards. As long 
as they are conscious of a reserve upon which they can fall 
back if repulsed they move forward with courage, but they 
are never able to stand alone; in the \ery face of victory, 
like Keats, the}' will turn and fly. 

Arriving at Cleveland, Mr. Douglas made the acquaint- 
ance of Sherlock J. Andrews. Mr. Andrews, after an hour's 
conversation with the young man, discussing the opening in 
the West, became so favorably impressed with his zeal that 
he advised him to remain in Cleveland, and tendered 
the use of his own library and office to the young barrister. 



434 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

as it required one year's study within that State to admit 
one to the bar. Mr. Andrews further supplemented his 
HberaHty with the offer of a junior partnership. An oppor- 
tunity of sucli promise overcame his resolution for the West, 
and he settled in Cleveland. Within a week he was 
prostrated with a fever, and four months elapsed before he 
was able to leave his room. During his convalescence his 
physician advised his return home, as the disease would 
doubtless attack him again in the spring if he remained in 
that locality. Under these circumstances he decided to 
leave Cleveland; but not to return home. He had told the 
friends at home that he would not come back until he was 
firmly established in business. He would move further 
west. 

He left Cleveland on a canal boat and finally reached 
Cincinnati. Here he spent a week in seeking employment 
by which he could support himself until his recruited health 
would permit a return to the law office. His money was 
running short, and he determined to try Louisville. Here a 
week's effort ended in failure. Nothing daunted he pushed 
on westward, taking a boat for St. Louis. Arriving in the 
city he formed the acquaintance of Edward Bates, who 
offered the use of his library and office until he could get 
into practice on his own account. The 3-oung man counted 
his mone}', and found the store too much reduced to take 
his chances, even with an office furnished him, and once 
more resolved to seek a new field. He had read a book of 
travel b}' a Scotchman, in which was a glowing description 
of Jacksonville, Illinois, and he determined to make an 
effort to find emplo}"ment there. He learned the cost 
of the trip and found he had barely enough money to carry 
him there by stage. He felt too feeble to walk, so, risking 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, 435 

all, he bought his ticket, going b}- boat as far as he could, 
and completing the journe}' by stage, which latter was 
almost as fatiguing as walking. He arrived in Jacksonville 
and got out of the stage, having thirty-seven cents left. He 
visited the schools, but no teacher was needed; he went to 
the law offices, but none required an assistant; he called at 
every store in town and offered for his board and lodging, 
but none wanted a clerk. His delicate and wasted form 
and pale and anxious face appealed to sympathy. He 
received a generous amount of sympathy, but none of it was 
the kind that helps a boy along who needs work. To settle 
his lodging bill he parted with some of his books. He had 
clung to them as a worshiper to his idols. With tears in 
his eyes for the first time at the wreck of his hopes, 
he gave up his books. He was pushed to the extremit}' of 
want. Sick, friendless, penniless, and without emplo3'ment, 
he could stay there no longer. 

In the heroism of despair he. took up his lightened satchel 
and started on foot for Winchester. He received an occa- 
sional rest by some farmer's kindness, who permitted him to 
ride in his wagon. He reached Winchester dinnerless. Dr. 
Johnson, on entering London, signed himself "Impransus" — 
dinnerless. All his learning could not bu}' him a dinner. 
When a man has an empty purse, and an empty stomach, 
his learning appears to be an empty thing too. It is very 
difficult for learning to be appreciated, or put in the channel 
of earnings unless it has some material assistance. The 
world looks on learning as a .very immaterial thing, only 
recognizing it as a negative quantit3% until out of its own 
self it has demonstrated that it is of some practical use. 

The avenues of all the industries are worked to the 'com- 
mon end of gain. Any part that refuses to return a profit 



436 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

is soon struck from the pa}--roll. In these Litter da3-s the 
world closes its ears, even to the philosophers, unless the}' 
materialize some project that will help on the general use. 
There are scholars whose learning is so great that they can 
labor only in the exclusive high spheres. There are college 
professors with large salaries, who, if by some misfortune 
were thrown out among strangers with their "Prof." no 
longer attached, would fail as clerks, and could not succeed 
as district school teachers. Such characters go lamely 
through life. 

An education which fits its possessor for one exclusive 
sphere is a cumbrous acquisition. To be educated is to 
have all the powers rendered so supple, they can turn readily 
to any calling, and developed to such sinew they can pui'sue 
it with vigor, and without weariness. The common expe- 
rience of beginners is to stop for a season at some pursuit 
that kindly presents itself to their necessities, and after they 
have made needed accumulations, or arrangements have 
been perfected, to go forward to their life business. To be 
trained to an unwieldiness that will not permit this, is in 
many instances to be effectually barred from the ultimate 
calling. The cabinet maker, when his work is slack, who 
will sit around and refuse to work for good wages at the 
carpenter's trade, because he didn't learn that trade, is not 
very likely to be a money-making workman at his own 
trade. There is a cruel necessity, that is not always to be 
controlled, which sometimes breaks up chosen channels of 
emploj'ment, the victims are thrown on their own resources, 
to once more begin their living from a new industry; to 
push into it with heartiness is a talent as valuable as 
genius. 

In the morning after his arrival at Winchester young 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 437 

Douglas began his search for emplo3'ment. As he ap- 
proached the square, he saw a crowd of persons assembled, 
and curiosity led him to the spot. A merchant had died, 
and his stock of goods was to be sold at auction that morn- 
ing. The hour for the sale had come, and the crier was 
there, but no one could be found competent to act as clerk. 
As the young stranger approached, it was suggested that he 
might be able to " read, write and cipher." The adminis- 
trator told him their embarrassment and begged his services, 
and oftered to pay him two dollars a da}' for his work. The 
ofier was accepted. It was an Aladdin's lamp thrust into his 
hands as he reached the edge of despair. The young clerk, 
with feelings of happiness he could never express, took his 
place. He was yet six months of twenty-one years of age, 
and did not look to be over sixteen. That frontier assembly 
looked at him in admiration as he tabulated the sales and 
called out the amounts. The auction lasted three days. The 
promptness with which the clerk discharged his duties won 
him the favorable opinion of all parties; in addition to this 
the readiness he manifested in* talking on political subjects 
attracted much attention. The political tight of General 
Jackson was as warm here as it was in the East. The 
earnestness with which the stranger defended "Old Hick- 
or}-," made him a favorite with that party at once. Few 
of the old farmers were able to argue the case with the 
Bankites; finding so able an advocate in Douglas, the}' vol- 
untered to assist him in anything that was in their power. 
He frankly told them, he had come west to make his home 
and fortune, and his present want was a school. 

His new found friends decided that he must not leave 
their locality, and in a few days had him a school of forty 
pupils at three dollars each per quarter. He entered upon 



438 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

his duties at once. He devoted his evenings and leisure 
time to the study of law-books, and on Saturda3's acted as 
counsel before the Justice's Court. He had so carefully 
economized his salary as teacher and the receipts from his 
justice's practice, that at the end of the three months' term 
he removed to Jacksonville, vs^here he opened a law ofBce. 
On the fourth day of March, 1834, then lacking sev'en weeks 
of his majority, he was licensed as an attorney. The 
excitement of the Jackson " Bank Question," was the 
all-pervading topic of politics. Parties were designated 
"Jackson Party " and "Opposition." The hostile feeling 
extended to all the relations of life. Social and business 
intercourse was confined, as far as practicable, to political 
friends. To be a political opponent was to a great extent 
to be a personal enem\-. At Jacksonville the supporters of 
the bank policy of the administration were very few. In 
the absence of daily papers and the later adjuncts of civiliza- 
tion for disseminating news, the population of each district of 
territory trading at a count}' seat was in the habit of gather- 
ing at their capital on Saturdays to transact business and 
talk politics. The Jackson party, being in the minority in 
this section, gathered information and courage at such 
times. Saturday became a seventh-day political jubilee 
with them. 

The Douglas law office soon became the place of resort, 
and Douglas the political cynosure of all eyes. In consulta- 
tion it was there decided to hold a public meeting to test the 
question whether General Jackson was to be entirely aban- 
doned or heartily supported. It was considered a hazardous 
experiment, the business men feeling the people would not 
turn out to sustain the President under the existing panic. 
The ultra men forced the meeting and billed the country 



STEPUEN A. DOUGL^tS. 439 

for miles around. A resolution was prepared, endorsing the 
policy or the President in refusing to re-charter the bank 
and in removing the deposits — two points upon which thous- 
ands of Democrats ditfered from the administration. The 
majority of Democrats thought a bank of some kind 
indispensable, and the other side declared the charter of 
such an institution to be clearly unconstitutional. When 
the day of meeting arrived, the Court House was thronged. 
It was a larger concourse of people than had ever assembled 
in Jacksonville before. Mr. Douglas had declined to offer the 
resolutions, but when the hour of meeting arrived, and the 
windows were taken out of the Court room to enable those 
^tside in the square to hear the proceedings within, the 
gentleman who had accepted the duty of presenting the reso- 
lutions, handed them to Douglas, and told him that now 
was the time to make an impression, and he inust lead the 
fight for the resolutions. The task was accepted, and the 
resolutions offered and supported in a brief explanatory 
speech. Josiah Lamborn, a lawyer of reputation, a Whig, 
and a speaker of much force, followed in opposition to the 
resolutions. He referred in caustic terms to Mr. Douglas, 
and flatly contradicted some of his statements. At the 
close of this speech calls were made for Douglas. He 
arose and settled the question of fact by calling upon several 
Whigs who declared Lamborn to be wrong. He then ad- 
dressed himself to the question involved; he exposed the 
positions taken by Lamborn so completely that that gentle- 
man precipitately left the room; the flight of Lamborn 
completed the capture of the audience; the speaker waxed 
warm with his subject, and the hearers responded in rounds 
of applause. The excitement reached the highest point of 
endurance, cheer upon cheer was given with hearty vigor at 



440 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the close; the effect was irresistible; the crowd swayed to 
and fro to get near the orator; at length he was seized by 
them, and borne on the shoulders and upheld by the hands 
of the enthusiastic assembly, was carried out of the Court 
House and around the public square, amid shouts for "Jack- 
son and Douglas." That day he received the title of the 
"Little Giant." 

That speech turned the tide of sentiment in Morgan 
county and settled its political majorit}' for many years. 
The history of this meeting was published throughout the 
State and created a great desire to hear the young David 
that had made Lamborn run. The people of the first judi- 
cial district expressed a desire to have the 3"oung law3'er 
elected prosecuting attornc}-, the Legislature reflected this 
desire the following winter, and INIr. Douglas was chosen by 
the vote of that body. He was elected over Hardin, a dis- 
tinguished jurist, and many feared it was a mistake, while 
the friends of Hardin felt it an outrage. One of the judges 
of the Supreme Court denounced the selection. " What 
business," he asked, " has such a stripling with such an 
office? He is no lawyer and has no law books." But the 
3-oung prosecutor was not long in proving that the election 
was a very proper one. 

An incident that took place during the early days of his 
attorneyship will illustrate the difficulties he had to encounter 
and the promptness and energy with which he met and con- 
\-erted what was intended as a painful humiliation into a proud 
personal and professional triumph. It was his first term in 
M'Lean county. There had been some local law violated, 
and the number of offenders was numerous. The attorney 
proceeded in the discharge of his duty with great zeal. He 
sat up all night writing his indictments, and actuall}' closed 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 441 

the business in a short time. The grand jury found the bills 
as prepared and were forthwith discharged. The bar having 
obtained a hint that the new attorney was to be caught and 
publicly disgraced, waited the denouement with anxiety. 
The morning after the grand jury had been discharged the 
crisis came. A meinber .of the bar, one of" the most dis- 
tinguished lawyers of the State, at the opening of the court 
mdved to quash all the indictments found at that term, fifty 
in number, on the ground that they alleged the offenses 
charged in them as having been committed in "M'Clean 
County," a county unknown to the laws of the State of Illi- 
nois," the county in which the Court was then sitting, and 
in which the parties were residing being "M'Lean County." 
In other words, that the prosecuting attorney had misspelled 
the name of the county. The objection, if valid, was a 
fatal one; and the grand jury having been discharged, 
there was no opportunity to correct the error in spelling. 
Not a lawj-er at the bar could see how the objection was to 
be overcome. 

The motion was an entire surprise to the prosecutor — at 
least he so expressed hiinself He insisted that before the 
court should decide the question, the original act of the Leg- 
islature establishing the county should be produced; when 
that was done, he informed the court he would possibly have 
something to say on the motion. This was said with so 
much confidence and earnestness, and the position taken 
was so correct that the Court decided that the prosecutor 
was entitled to what he had asked, and as the proof was eas- 
ily obtained, the counsel should produce the act establishing 
the count}'. A number of acts of the Legislature were pro- 
duced, all referring to the count}' as "McLean County," and 
the evidence that that was the proper legal name of the county, 



442 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

and had been so recognized through years of legislation, was 
o\er\vhelming. No copy of the statute establishing the 
county could be found in Bloomington. Mr. Douglas insisted 
that the name of the county could only be determined legally 
b}' the recital of that act. 

That night, and the next day and evening, the legal fra- 
ternity, including jurors, witnesses, and litigants, were made 
merry over jocular criticisms upon schoolmasters turned law- 
yers, and schoolmasters being unable to spell the name of 
one of the largest counties in the State. ]\Ir. Douglas kept 
his own counsel. His friends could not understand the cour- 
age with which he met the motion, nor the boldness with 
which he repelled every open assault. They imputed his de- 
fiant tone to bravado, and his demand for the statute as a 
mere excuse for delay, to gain time in which to make up his 
mind whether to resign his office and leave the State, or to 
go back to teaching school. In the meantime messengers had 
been sent to Peoria and elsewhere for a copy of the acts of 
1S30-1. The one party was confident that it? produc- 
tion would be the last nail in the professional coffin of an 
aspiring individual who, a few months ago had defeated one 
of the best lawyers in the State, and had attained the best at- 
torneyship in the gift of the Legislature. The court was in 
session when the messengers returned; one glance at the 
book, and counsel rose and asked the court to dispose of the 
motion to quash the indictments. All was excitement. The 
State's attorney had also glanced at the book. He rose as 
defiant as ever, and demanded the reading of the statute. 
Lawyers crowded round the counsel who held the statute in 
his hand, and were perfectly astounded at the effronter}' of 
the prosecutor. 

Profert of the statute was made; the court asked counsel 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. i43 

to read it, and counsel read, amid profound silence, the words 
"An act to establish McLean County," and turned triumph- 
antl}' toward the attorney of the State. That gentleman, 
instead of being annihilated by the manner, or by the words 
read, quietly stated that the title of the act was not the act 
itself, and demanded that the whole act should be read. The 
court said that counsel must, as it was demanded, read the 
statute. He at once read the first section: " Sec. i. Be it 
enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in 
the General Assembl}', that all that part of country lying 
within the following boundaries, to-wit. Beginning," etc., 
etc., "shall constitute a new county, to be called McLean." 
There was a pause — a suspension of public opinion — and the 
silence was broken by the demand of the prosecutor that the 
other sections be read. Section 2 did not contain the name 
of the county; section 3 repeated it twice, and each time bv 
the name of Mc Lean; section 6 and last named Bloomington 
as the "seat of justice of said county of M'Clean." The 
attorney, in drawing his indictment, had omitted the 
apostrophe, and capitalized the C, using a small 1. He 
had employed the exact letters of the bod}- of the stat- 
ute.; the other side, seeing a capital C, a small 1, and no 
apostrophe, had been caught in the very trap in which 
they thought the attorney had placed himself. The 
motion was overruled. The laugh was on the other side, 
and the crowd, now regarding the whole thing as a most dex- 
terous plan deliberately laid by the prosecutor to catch the 
able lawyers with whom he had to contend, gave him an 
applause and a credit vastly increased in enthusiasm by the 
previous impression that he had been thoroughly victimized 
by his opponents. 

The following year Mr. Douglas was elected to the Legis- 



444 THE OE^''IUS OF INDUSTRY. 

lature. He was an acti\e member, participating largely in 
the discussions of the session. During this session Mr. Doug- 
las unfolded to the Democratic leaders his scheme for organ- 
izing the party in the State. No State convention of either 
party had ever been held in Illinois. The convention was 
called, the State organization was perfected, developing a 
like system in each county. Thus organized through the ef- 
fort of ]\Ir. Douglas, the ranks of the part}' in Illinois stood 
unbroken and unconquered for nearly a quarter of a century. 




hflm \ '\\u^^. 



(mmvm 




R. DOUGLAS bv this time began to comprehend 
that his native heath was poHtics. Of an earnest 
and impetuous temper for what he deemed right, 
and wedded to the principles of Democracy by all the 
instincts of his being, his enthusiasm for its cause knew no 
bounds. The part}' caught the glow of his zeal, and believed 
his energies would carry them to victory in any contest. In 
this Congressional District, the year before. General Har- 
rison had beaten Mr. Van Buren by three thousand votes in 
the Presidential race; it was evident sterling work would 
Tae required to overcome such a majorit}'. INIr. Douglas 
was unanimousl}' chosen for the task. The result was, he 
came within five votes of an election. The renown he 
achieved in this contest was as broad as the State; defeated, 
he was compelled to turn his attention to the law once more. 
But to remain at the law was impossible. In the great con- 
test of 1840 his services were in daily demand. He no 
longer suffered from feeble health, having developed a strong 
constitution and remarkable power of physical endurance. 

445 



'4i6 THE QENIUli OF INDUSTRY. 

From one end of the State to the other the ' ' Little Giant " 
upheld his part}-'s banner. His reputation as an orator had 
reached a high point of popularit}-. He had become the 
most conspicuous figure in the State. 

In 1 84 1 the Legislature, in joint convention, selected five 
additional judges of the Supreme Court. Mr. Douglas was 
chosen one of that number. His practice as an attorney 
had not been large, for his time was chiefly given to politics. 
But he had evinced a rare talent for law, and was one of the 
most thoroughly read attoi-neys at the bar of his State. The 
measures he had advocated or opposed in the Legislature, 
on their legal aspect, had developed the possession of a pro- 
found and masterly comprehension of the science of law. 
That gave him, as an act of justice, one of the first of legal 
positions — a Supreme Judgeship — and at an age younger 
than it had ever been bestowed on any other man in the 
United States. His judicial circuit embraced the Mormon 
settlement, in which there was a conflict between the 
" Saints " and "Gentiles." There was an embittered feel- 
ing between the Mormons and the rest of the people, which 
had its center in Joe Smith. The Mormons were accused 
of every crime in the calendar, and Smith was made the 
universal scape-goat; when he or any of his people escaped 
conviction at trial, the people held the Court responsible, 
and the Mormons denounced the Court for always inclining 
to the oppressors of their race. 

That instantaneous decision and celerity of action, which 
was the safe guard of Douglas in man}- trying positions in 
debates, often served him well in those turbulent trials. 
Once when Joe Smith was on trial for some ofTense, the peo- 
ple collected in the town from a great distance, of the sur- 
rounding countr}', determined that a speedy justice should 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 447 

be dealt out in connection with this trial; outrages were 
being constantly perpetrated, propert}' was stolen, and 
mysterious murders were of frequent occurrence. The mob 
proposed to mete out justice on general principles. When 
it became evident the evidence would not convict, a gallows 
was hastil}' erected in the court-3'ard, and four hundred men 
tiled into the court-room to take Smith and hang him. As 
the mob boisterously crowded to the bar, the Judge ordered 
the room cleared; the little Sheritf asked the " gentlemen " 
to keep order and retire, but the crowd pressed on towards 
the prisoner, and now were almost within reach. Judge 
Douglas sprang to his feet and commanded a six-foot Ken- 
tuckian, who was standing by the prisoner, " I appoint you 
Sheriff of this Court. Clear this Court-room — the law 
demands it." The newly and rather suddenly appointed 
Sheriff proceeded to obey orders. The first, second, and 
third man who approached the prisoner were knocked down. 
Another who was pushing around by the wall was knocked 
through a window. The crowd seeing their leaders go 
down, hesitated, and then turned to the doors. In five 
minutes the room was cleared. The Judge had no legal 
power to appoint a Sheriff when the duly elected Sheriff was 
present, but justice was about to be overthrown by violence 
and a murder committed; a crime must be prevented and 
the law enforced; the emergency did not permit a debate 
on the limits of power to accomplish this; hesitation would 
seal the prisoner's fate, and a moment's dela}' would be fatal. 
Like Jackson at New Orleans, he assumed the responsibility 
required. 

The ability, in the whirl and roar of a great commotion, 
to see the one thing necessary to do and to do it with 
promptness and authority, js one of the distinguishing marks 



448 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

between greatness and mediocrity. This genius to compre- 
hend the difficulties of an emergenc}' at once, and the 
diplomacy to solve them on the instant, served Douglas at a 
later day when a conflict of arms was threatened, and rid 
the State of a trouble that was growing to serious propor- 
tions. In the year 1846 the excitement at Nauvoo reached 
its height. The people were determined to drive the 
*' Saints " away, and they were as determined to stay. 
Governor Ford sent a regiment of four hundred and fifty 
men to keep both belligerents in order. Col. Hardin was 
in command and Judge Douglas held the post of Major. 
As the troops advanced on Nauvoo they found the Mormons, 
four thousand strong, drawn up in line to oppose their entr}' 
into the city. Hardin halted the troops just out of rifle 
range, and addressed them: "There are Mormons ten to 
one against us. They are well armed, but we must attack 
them. Let an}' man who wishes to go back step to the 
front." Not a man came forward. " There were, I dare 
say," says Douglas, "just 451 ot^us, including our Colonel, 
who would have been glad to have retired; but not 
one of us had the courage to own that he was a coward." 
" Major Douglas," said the Colonel, " will take one hundred 
men, will proceed to Nauvoo, arrest the twelve apostles, and 
bring them here." " Colonel Hardin," asked the Major, 
quietly, so that no one else heard him, " is this a per- 
emptory order.'' " " It is." " Then I will make an attempt 
to execute it; but I give you warning that not a 
man of us will ever return." " The apostles must be 
taken. Major Douglas," replied the Colonel. " Very well, 
Colonel. If 3'ou send me alone you will be much more 
likely to get them." "But you will lose your life." " I will 
take the responsibility. If you. send me alone I will plddge 



8TEPHE2f A. DOUGLAS. 449 

myself to reach the city. As to bringing in the twelve, or 
getting back mj-self, that is quite another question. I will 
try." '' Major Douglas," said the Colonel, after reflecting 
a few moments, " will proceed to Nauvoo, taking such 
escort as he sees fit." 

The order was hardl}' given when the little Major dashed 
olT at full speed and alone. As he approached the Mormon 
legions. General Wells came forward to meet him, and, 
after a brief conversation, escorted him through the hollow 
square of troops into the city. He was not long in finding 
Brigham and the tweh'e. Most of them had in fact been 
before him for trial, as Judge, upon some charge or other. 
The Judge, in a very brief time, succeeded in inducing 
Brighain and his associates to accompany him. They 
all packed themselves into the "apostolic coach," drawn by 
eight horses, and presented themselves in the camp. The 
fighting was postponed, and negotiations for the removal of 
the Mormons were entered into. Judge Douglas being 
chief negotiator on one side. Brigham himself said but 
little, and, at length, said he would go for awhile, directing 
his associates to settle the terms. These were soon inform- 
ally agreed to b)- the twelve, and they were committed to 
paper. Brigham returned and asked how matters had 
succeeded. He was told that everything had been settled. 
" Let me look at the terms," said Brigham, quietly. He 
read them over hastily. "I'll never agree to them; never! " 
he exclaimed. The vote was formall}' put and the whole 
twelve, without a dissenting voice, declared against them, 
though they had unanimously accepted them five minutes 
before. Judge Douglas then retired with Brigham and 
renewed negotiations. He soon convinced that prophet 
that now was the Lord's time for the " Saints " to move to 



450 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

a Canaan of their own. New terms were agreed to, in favor 
of which all the apostles at once voted. The treat}' was 
dul}' signed, and the great Mormon nation took up its 
march and forsook the soil of Illinois. 

Mr. Douglas did not greatly desire a seat on the Supreme 
Bench. It was a position of honor rather than of profit. It 
took him away from Springfield, to which place he had just 
moved, and made his home at Quinc}', where he was isolated 
from the political workers of the State. His upright and 
conscientious course as Judge, with the signal ability of his 
decisions, united to the fact that he was but twenty-seven 
years of age, made him a conspicuous figure. The physical 
stature of Mr. Douglas, which in the early part of his 
career proved to his detriment, became a leverage for 
increasing his fame, with his reputation once established. A 
frail and insignificant tenement, known to hold a spirit which 
Titiin would willingly surrender his body to possess, became 
an object of admiration. The men who have ruled the 
world have not been cast in frames of heroic size. Orators 
and military chieftains have been distinguished for being 
below the average height of men. Nelson, Bonaparte and 
Alexander, Demosthenes, Chr3'sostom and Chatham, were 
not built on any colossal frame. " 'Twas not their stature 
made them great, but greatness of their deeds." There 
appears to be no necessar}' connection between a great body 
and a great mind. 

When the Legislature met in 1842 a United States Sen- 
ator was to be elected. Throughout the State there was 
manifested a great desire for Judge Douglas to be given the 
place. He was now but twenty-nine years old, and in case 
of a special session of the Senate could not take his seat, for 
he would barely be of a Constitutional age — thirty years — 



STEPHEy A. DOUGLAS. 451 

at the time of the regular session. This fact interfered 
much with the canvass his friends were making in his behalf 
He nevertheless made a formidable showing in the ballot 
the Hon. Sidney Breeze being elected by fift}-six votes 
Douglas receiving fift3'-one. He again thought of renounc 
ing politics and retiring from the Bench, remove to Spring 
field and enter the practice once more. But his district 
while he was engaged in holding a term of court, renom 
inated him for Congress. There were doubts of the election 
of any Democrat. There had been a redistricting and 
Douglas was left in the heaviest opposition counties. He at 
once resigned the Judgeship, and entered into arrangements 
for a joint canvass with Mr. Browning, the Whig candidate. 
The two traveled and spoke every day until the election. 
The contest was a very exciting one, Browning feeling that 
defeat would bring the close of his political career, Douglas 
conscious that election would be his continuance in political 
advancement. Douglas was elected by a majority of 445. 
So great had been the exertions of the candidates that, on 
election da)', both were prostrated with illness, from which 
neither recovered for nearly two months. In November of 
that year Mr. Douglas started to Washington. In Novem- 
ber, 1833, he had landed in Illinois a penniless boy, wander- 
ing on foot from town to town, seeking emplo^yment; now, 
in November, 1843, he goes to the Capitol of his Govern- 
ment, bearing a commission as a National Representative. 
Unaided, he had realized the richest promises he had 
pledged himself, when ten years before he left the old home. 
He had been State Attorney, Register of the Land OfBce, 
Secretary of State, Judge of the Supreme Court, and now 
a member of Congress. 

There is no rule by which men achieve recognition among 



452 THE GEXirS OF ISDr^TP.T. 

their fellows. Disraeli laughed down in his first speech, 
and his first literar}- etforts a failure, held his iron will 
against the storm and conquered the admiration of the 
very people who mocked him. John Bright, England's 
illustrious Commoner, moved to reputation b\' a single 
bound. Possessed of large wealth, he gave his time wholly 
to business: but when Cobden besought him to •"come and 
and ^^"in cheap bread for the people," the depths of his 
nature were aroused: he. joined hands with the agitator and 
together they won a victory for the people of that realm. 
Mr. Bright was unused to public address, but. all aglow 
with the needs of the hour and that an informed people 
would repeal the corn law. he gave it the advocacy of zeal 
and passion. Effective in his descriptions and powerful in 
his earnestness, even his opponents were brought to admire 
his genius. In this contest his speeches were the eloquence 
of svmpathv for the poor: but having, through the charity 
of his nature, accidentally developed capabilities he knew 
not of, he began and carried forward a system of reading 
and training that fitted him to compete ^^-ith the " Thunderers 
of Parliament." This he did shortly after taking member- 
ship in the House. The portly figure and the Uon-like head 
cauo^ht the glance of all strangers, and Bright was pointed 
out with pride by the habitues of the place. " I shall not 
know the House of Commons without Sir Robert Peel," 
said Macaulay. when his re-election restored him to his old 
place. "When Bright was forced into retirement the House 
of Commons was scarcely itself any longer. Men might 
oppose him, but. from the first, there was never any question 
as to his consummate ability as an orator. The emptiest 
House speedilv filled when he was known to be on his feet. 
Essentially a plain speaker, he became the most cultivated 



STEFSEX JL JfOTGJLAS. 4o3 

orator on the floor, inasmuch as he most elaboratel\- and 
perastently trained his natural gifts of eloquence. Always 
earnest, he possessed a simpliciry of pathos, and an occa- 
sional grandeur, scorn and indignation that ■were rarely 
equaled by any orator. He was copious in humorous 
imagery, and sometimes it stung his ^^ctim like a poisoned 
arrow. During the com conamotion, when Disraeli's 
measure was being considered. Bright relerred to Disraeli 
as a " mountebank, with a pill for the earthquake." 

There are many elements that go to make up the popular 
orator — the speaker who labors with the people and for the 
people. There are certain things found common to all of 
them. They are remarkable for strtmg ctHnmon sense; 
they are forcible in conversation and talk weightilv to the 
point; they are all aglow with zeal for their cause, and it is 
a caxise that deeply interests every citizen. Their eloquence 
is a lire kindled by the intensitj- of their own convictions, 
and the universal interest piles on fuel until their flame 
warms and fires a whole nation. Without this the Philip- 
pics of Demosthenes would have been as cold and spiritless 
as the strains of Martin Tuj^jer. It was that heat that 
made the old Burgessses cry out, " Treaswi! treasoni " 
when Patrick Henry thundered against King George. A 
like spirit blazed in Douglas in his Jackstm advocacv. and a 
heat from the same fiimace caused the oppositicHi in England 
to denounce John Bright as a demagogue. In addition to 
this motive power there are certain traits of ease of manner, 
directness of st\ie, simplicity of argumait, and mingled 
pleasantrv- and passion to be traced in this character. Their 
voice is like a peal of bells, producing the varied tones suited 
to the expression of their thane. 

A London writer in the ^Te^s sives a 5ur\"e\" of ^Ir. 



454 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Bright as an orator fitly describing all orators of this class. 
An extract is submitted: " Whilst the effect by Mr. Bright 
upon those who listen to him is wonderful, the first impres- 
sion of those who hear him for the first time is one of 
disappointment. When he begins to speak to an}' audience 
he general!}' opens his address in a low tone, pauses occa- 
sionally, as though to find a suitable word, and seems 
to have no idea whatever of rousing the enthusiasm of those 
who listen to him. Those who have taken with them pre- 
conceived notions of Mr. Bright, presenting him to their 
imaginations as a reckless demagogue, full of sound and 
fury, will hardly be able to recognize the great orator in the 
quiet and unimpassioned speaker who stands motionless 
before them, pouring forth a stream of noble Saxon words, 
the very simplicity and appropriateness of which rob the 
orator of a portion of the credit which is due to him. But 
presently, while the stranger is wondering at the infatuation 
of those who have placed upon the brows of this man the 
crown of eloquence, he is himself drawn within the circle of 
his influence, and, forgetting his preconceived notions, his 
subsequent disappointment and his whole theory of the art 
of oratory, he listens enchanted to the man who can put the 
most difficult questions so plainl}' before his audience, and in 
whose hands the dryest subject becomes so interesting. 
Then, when the speaker has drawn the whole of his hearers 
into sympathy with him, he begins to work on their emo- 
tions, like a skilful player on the harp. And first he rouses 
the scorn of scorn in their hearts by a few simple words, 
which, when we read them in the morning, appear alto- 
gether innocent, but which, as he utters them, scathe the 
object of his v/rath more terribly than the bitterest or most 
violent invective. Perhaps in nothing has Mr. Bright 



STEPUEX A. DOUGLAS. 455 

SO much power as in his use of sarcasm. The manner in 
which, b}' a mere inflection of his voice, he can express tiie 
intensest scorn, and so express it as to make his feelings 
more completely known to his audience than if he spent an 
hour in tr3-ing to explain them, is simply marvelous. We 
remember one or two instances in which the mere tone of 
his voice has conveyed an impression of his boundless 
contempt for his adversaries which no language could ha\e 
expressed half so well. But almost directly after the 
audience has been stirred by the orator's sarcasm he begins 
in the calmest and most deliberate manner to tell some 
stor}-. 

The old friends at home, and at Cleveland, were anxious 
to have the young Congressman visit them on his way to 
Washington. He stopped to see them, for he had promised 
to return when he had carved a place for himself in the world. 
He had achieved a phenomenal success. The ten years had 
been crowded with struggles, and mingled with defeats and 
victories, the future still beckoned him on, but it forebode a 
tempestuous career. On his way to Congress he realized 
for the first time, like the conqueror of Lodi at the bridge, 
that he might become a factor in the world's control; he vis- 
ited the old cabinet shop and looking at the two lives together, 
having tasted of both, he said, " had health and strength been 
equal to the task, no consideration could have induced me to 
abandon the shop for the field of politics." In December 
1843, Mr. Douglas took his seat in Congress. He was pos- 
sessed of the qualities that soon win recognition in the houses 
of Congress. His stature and his youth attracted a curious 
interest, but the genius of his speech shortly turned curiosity 
into admiration. 

He was a natural leader, aggressive in character, self-reli- 



456 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

ant, gifted with decision, and crowned with a read}', prac- 
tical judgment of . men and measures. The I louse of Com- 
mons is a hard place for one to rise. The rules of propriety 
and limits of debate on all unrecognized leaders compel a 
new member to serve for years before his views are received 
with consideration. In Congress it is difficult to reach a 
prominent place on committees, or gain tiie car of the coun- 
try, because the competition is so great. It is not a gather- 
ing of wealth and family influences as the Commons, but an 
association mainly of the aggressive thinkers and active po- 
litical workers in each district of the government. Such 
men will always make a turbulent assembly. Leadership in 
such a body is a self-created place. It is an unconscionable 
horde of men, de\-oid of mercy or sympathy for each other, 
filled with a vengeful determination to strike down the first 
head that appears above the general level, accustomed to bat- 
tles and knowing all that victory means for a rival, conscious 
that unrecognized here they will be speedily overthrown at 
home, every armor is kept on, and the metal of every sword 
is tried ; the man who can conquer in such a fight is a Crom- 
wellian Dictator, and could guide the nation safely through a 
revolution. 

INIr. Douglas entered the arena with the same possessed 
confidence that discussed the bank question at Jacksonville, 
or addressed the Illinois Legislature. He was free from 
moral cowardice, and so convinced that the measures he ad- 
\ocated were right, and must therefore triumph, that, like 
the Norsemen, he was determined to find a wa}' or make it. 
Early in his first session a bill, to refund to General Jackson 
$1000 imposed as a fine upon him by Judge Hall, at New 
Orleans, during the defense of that cit}', was re-introduced, 
ha\ing been considered previousl}'. Jackson had been ex- 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 457 

tolled on all sides as a patriot and successful defender, but 
for this reason chiefly he was supported, lawyers and states- 
men viewing the judge's decision as sound. Just one month 
after he had taken his seat Mr. Douglas obtained the floor. 
His was a new face and a strange voice in those halls. He 
renounced the beaten path in his advocacy of the bill, and 
took high grounds in defense of Jackson's conduct, repudiat- 
ing the legalit}' of Judge Ilall's decision. The position was 
a bold one. The speaker attracted attention, and, as he 
warmed with his subject he soon obtained the ear of the 
House. He made a thorough and masterly vindication of 
Jackson's action, and completely exposed the illegality and 
wanton injustice of the Court. The speech was a surprise to 
the House, and a gratification to the friends of the injured 
General. The character of Douglas as a lawyer and as a de- 
bater was established that day. General Jackson was in 
command of the troops at New Orleans. An insurrection 
was imminent, being stimulated b}^ a proclamation and prom- 
ises of the enemy, of which the firing of the first gun was to 
be the signal. Convinced that the salvation of the city 
depended upon the existence of martial law, the General de- 
clared it. For this " contempt " of the civil authorities Judge 
Hall fined him. When the Congress of the United States 
feared to enunciate a new principle, and proposed to return 
Jackson the $1000 out of "patriotic sympathy," Douglas, 
only thirty days old as a member, scorned their sj^mpathy, and 
proclaimed a principle of national action for times of danger, 
that will stand like the bulwarks of the Constitution in the 
days of sudden peril. But a few lines of that address can be 
quoted. He said: " There are exigencies in the history of 
nations as well as individuals when necessit}' becomes the 
paramount law to which all other considerations must yield. 



458 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

It is that first great law of nature, which authorizes a man 
to defend his life, his person, his wife and children, at all 
hazards, and repel aggression and insult, and to protect itself 
in the exercise of its legislative functions; it is that law which 
enables courts to defend themselves and punish for contempt. 
It was this same law which authorized General Jackson to de- 
fend New Orleans by resorting to the only means in his 
power which could accomplish the end. In such a crisis, 
necessity confers the authority and defines its limits. If it 
becomes necessaiy to blow up a fort, it is right to do it ; if it 
is necessary to sink a vessel, it is right to sink it; and if it is 
necessary to burn a city, it is right to burn it. I will not fa- 
tigue the committee with a detailed account of the oc- 
currences of that period, and the circumstances surrounding 
the General, which rendered the danger immediate and 
impending, the necessity unavoidable, the duty imperative, 
and temporizing ruinous. * * * * General Jackson 
promptly issued the order. The cit}' was saved.'' The 
speech of Douglas not only relieved Jackson, but established 
a doctrine. 

The following year, in the Presidential campaign of Polk 
and Clay, the representative men of the democratic party 
attended a monster meeting at Nashville. Mr. Douglas was 
there. A vast procession of people visited the " Hermitage," 
to see for the last time the illustrious patriot who had so 
prominently occupied the hearts of his countrymen. Feeble 
from care and years, he was unable to stand, and was seated 
in his great arm-chair. The visiting multitude filed by; he 
gazed upon them with the tenderness of a kingly father 
upon his citizen-children; and they moved on in the presence 
of fatherhood and greatness with uncovered heads. Mr. 
Douglas was brought up and introduced. " Are }'ou the 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 459 

Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, who delivered a speech last session 
on the subject of the fine impbsed on me for declaring mar- 
tial law at New Orleans? '' asked General Jackson. " I have 
delivered a speech in the House of Representatives upon 
that subject," was the modest reply. ''Then stop," said 
General Jackson, '' sit down here beside ine. I desire to 
return you my thanks for that speech. You are the first 
man that has ever relieved my mind on a subject which has 
rested upon it for thirty years. M}' enemies have always 
charged ine with violating the Constitution of my country 
by declaring martial law at New Orleans, and my friends 
have always admitted the violation, but have contended 
that circumstances justified me in that violation. I never 
could understand how it was that the performance of a sol- 
emn dut}' to my country — a duty, which if I had neglected, 
would have made me a traitor in the sight of God and man 
— could properly be pronounced a violation of the Constitu- 
tion. I felt convinced in my own mind that I was not 
guilty of such heinous ofTense; but I could never make out a 
legal justification of my course, nor has it ever been done, 
sir, until you on the floor of Congress at the late session 
established it be}'ond the possibility of cavil or doubt. I 
thank 3'ou, sir, for that speech. It has relieved my mind 
from the only circumstance that rested painfully upon it. 
Throughout my whole life I never performed an official act 
which I viewed as a violation of the Constitution of my 
country, and I can now go down to the grave in peace, 
with the perfect conciousness that I have not broken, at any 
period of my life, the Constitution or laws of mv country." 

Statesmen are of ^•alue to the government according to 
their fitness to appropriate the issues peculiar to their da3\ 
Men occupy seats in National Legislatures, who are never 



460 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

heard from except as they vote, passing through years 
of service without a record, yet there is general con- 
fession that they are capable of large achievements. The 
difficulty lies in the character of the legislation. The}- are 
men of abilit}-, but not versatility. In one phase of national 
problems they would be great, in all others they are no 
more than mediocre. 

On the subject of trade, that looked to giving the people 
of England cheap bread, Colden was the greatest of national 
economists. Hs battled on this subject until he revolution- 
ized the condition of thirty million laborers and recon- 
structed the trade laws of the kingdom. He was not 
narrow in having onh' one idea; one idea was his strength. 
A leader with two ideas could not have accomplished his 
task. The mission required a statesman of consummate pru- 
dence, a nature of uni\ersal S3"mpathies, and the colossal 
energies of a whole life time given to this one effort. 
A Gladstone and a Jeflerson would have been unequal 
to the task. Lincoln might have accomplished the 
work. Douglas could not; neither could Calhoun. Had 
there been no corn-law to repeal, Cobden would have been 
unknown to English readers; had there been no African 
slaverv, Lincoln would have been without a national history 
in America. 

Mr. Douglas was re-elected to Congress in 1846, this time 
without opposition in his own party. In one term he had 
ceased to be a "new member," and had come to be recog- 
nized as one of the leaders of the House. He was placed 
in the national assembly at a time when new questions 
were constantly arising, the proper disposal of which 
required tried counsellors or men gifted with the genius of 
legislation. Great emer^cencies create o-reat characters. A 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAfi. 401 

nation that is making history daily produces legislators who 
shape laws and direct government on the instant, as the 
great captains plan battles in the saddle Mr. Douglas had 
no great solitary thought of right to uphold or of wrong to 
overthrow; he was a master-builder in the formative epoch 
of the government. On man}' of the great questions that 
arose from 1843 to i860, his prudence and sagacity led the 
nation safely, and engrafted into the poHcy of the govern- 
ment some of our most salutary doctrines. Polk's adminis- 
tration was severely arraigned for precipitating the Mexican 
war. The country was greatly aroused over the injustice 
and inhumanit}' of the war, or in support of the Executive 
and his sustenance of American rights. INIr. Douglas 
championed the war, making a powerful argument in its 
justification, and of the American title to the whole of 
Texas. His speech had a wonderful effect on the House. 
His fame was rapidly rising as an orator and debater — at 
the beginning of his second Congressional term he was one 
of the conceded leaders of the Democratic side. While 3-et 
a member of the House, Mr. Douglas was elected in 1847 
to the Senate of the United States. He entered that body 
when the storm was gathering for the Missouri Com- 
promise. General Taylor had been elected President; his 
views upon the slavery question were unknown. 

Back to the Senate, happily for the harmony of the Union 
which he had so nobly served, and upon every page of 
whose history for half a century his name will ever stand 
the brightest, Henry Clay had come forth from the peace- 
ful shades of Ashland, once more to mingle in the strife of 
contending sections, and once more by his magic voice to 
quell the storm and guide the hostile factions into one com- 
mon path of peace. At that time the Senate was in its 



462 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

zenith. It numbered among its members, men whose names 
were historical — Webster, Phelps, Calhoun, Benton, and 
King. The list of Senators ot that Session will compare, in 
all the elements of true greatness, with that of the same 
number of men in any country, in any age. Mr. Clay was 
on the select committee which had charge of the two great 
bills Mr. Douglas had introduced on the Missouri Compro- 
mise question, and informed Mr. Douglas that the special 
committee would not report a bill, but would recommend 
to the Senate that his two bills, '' California " and " Terri- 
torial," should pass as one act. 

Mr. Douglas stated his objections to this, and urged that 
the two measures be simply incorporated into the com- 
mittee's report. Mr. Clay acknowledged the full force of 
this reasoning, but repeated that to take the bills of INIr. 
Douglas and report them as the great Compromise Bills, 
prepared by the select committee, would be unjust to their 
author, who was entitled to all the honor of preparing them. 
Mr. Douglas then said : " I respectfully ask you, Mr. Clay, 
what right have 3'-ou, to whom the country looks for so 
much, and as an eminent statesman having charge of a great 
measure for the pacification of a distracted country, to sacri- 
fice to any extent the chances of success on a mere punctilio 
as to whom the credit ma}' belong of having first written 
the bills .'^ I, sir, waive all claim and personal consideration 
in this matter, and insist that the committee shall pursue 
that course which they may deem best calculated to accom- 
plish the great end we all have in view, without regard to 
any interest merely personal to me " Mr. Clay, (extend- 
ing his hand to Mr. Douglas), " You are the most generous 
man living. I will unite the bills and report them; but 
justice shall, nevertheless, be done to you as the real author 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 463 

of the measures." Accordingl}^ Mr. Clay, the following 
morning, reported the two bills attached together by a 
wafer! They subsequently became known as the Omnibus 
Bill. 

Out of this contest to make the Missouri Compromise 
line of 36° 31' the boundary between slave and free terri- 
tory, arose the Kansas-Nebraska act. It was the culmina- 
tion of the same grand drama. It was the battle of a great 
right, the struggle of political parties which should control 
the legislation and destinies of the nation. The substance 
of this act was that all questions pertaining to slavery in the 
Territories, and in the new States to be formed therefrom, 
are to be left to the decision of the people residing therein, 
by their appropriate representatives, to be chosen by them 
for that purpose. No act of Congress since the foundation 
of our governnient aroused such universal interest, and has 
become so celebrated in political annals. Mr. Douglas as 
its author was subject to unbounded denunciation. While 
it was pending in Congress a storm, such as has never been 
known in the political annals of the country, was gathering, 
and it broke with all its force upon his head. He followed 
the chart he had laid down, undismayed by threats, and in 
the face of friends deserting him by the thousands. He 
looked to his own home, Illinois, there Abraham Lincoln 
had cast the tremendous weight of his influence against the 
act. Mr. Lincoln's eloquence was heard in its stately 
denunciations from Chicago to Cairo. 

The pressure from his own State was enough to crush 
most men. He had been hung in effigy throughout New 
England. Every description of obloqu}' had been heaped 
upon him. The whole North was in a rage of fury; they 
believed that the " Popular Sovereignty " of Douglas was 



4(14 TUB GENIUS Oi*" INDUSTRY. 

intended for the slave owners to populate the Territories, 
and vote each of them into the Union as a State v^^ith slavery. 
Mr. Douglas had declared that Congress shall neither legis- 
late slavery into any Territories or State, nor out of the 
same; but the people shall be left free to regulate their 
domestic concerns in their own way. The North accepted 
the gage of battle and said slavery was a crime and could 
go no farther. On the evening before the bill was to be 
voted upon the following day, the Senate's session was pro- 
tracted to a late hour. Mr. Douglas had the closing speech. 
It was near midnight when he obtained the floor. The 
galleries were yet crowded and the Senate fully aroused. 
At midnight with a packed Senate — his efKgies burning all 
over the land, a hundred meetings where he was being 
denounced — by popular frenzy — he arose calml}^ and closed 
the debate with one of the most remarkable speeches ever 
delivered. He was undismayed before the storm; it had 
onl}' added grandeur to his wondertiil eloquence. By the 
force of his argument, the impetuosity of his invective, and 
the clearness and power with which he advocated his great 
measure, he caught the storm that was surging against him, 
turned it, and hurled it back upon his enemies. Webster's 
reply to Ha3-ne never throbbed through the pulse of the 
nation as that last speech of Douglas on the Nebraska bill. 
It is not enough that one should possess self-reliance, deci- 
sion, and a practical temper, he must also have an inflexible 
will. Without this unyielding qualit)', there are trials when 
the most gifted powers will go down like chafT before 
the storm. Many men attain great success while the 
world goes smoothlv, but when the momentous difficul- 
ties, which invariably attach to all great enterprises, 
encounter them, their skill is all driven to rout and they are 



■ STEPUEN A. DOUGLAS. 465 

left helpless. Bismarck has ruled Germany and made her 
powerful, not because he is a greater statesman than Gam- 
betta, who ruled France since she became a Republic, 
but because he has an iron will. He has attained his ends 
and covered himself with renown, because he has marshalled 
to his every enterprise an invincible determination. A man 
who is weak and on the wrong side, if endowed with an in- 
domitable will, is generally found on the winning side. 

Mr. Douglas was a conscientious worker. Every public 
measure on which he was called to act received his careful 
attention; he weighed it in all its general bearings and mas- 
tered it in detail. When Adolph Thiers addressed the French 
Assembly on the "}'early budget," he was not better pan- 
oplied on the facts and figures of the treasury than Douglas 
on every possible relation of a bill he advocated or opposed. 
The thoroughness of his knowledge was his first source of 
power as a speaker. Isaac Errett said that thorough knowl- 
edge of a subject, joined to composure, was the secret of 
successful extemporaneous speaking. Douglas never arose 
to address an audience until after an exhaustive research of 
his subject. He was recognized as the readiest debater 
that ever entered Congress. He was always a full man, 
and won the prize of a tireless student. Webster often 
slighted his work and was great only on occasions. Doug- 
las never slighted anything. Like Mirabeau he had a 
chivalrous regard for all he said, and regarded every 
subject upon which he talked as too important to be treated 
indifferently. 

The author of "David Copperfield " said : " Many men 
have worked much harder and not succeeded half so well; 
but I never could have done what I have done without the 
habits of punctuality, order and diligence; without the de- 



466 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

termination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, 
no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its 
heels. My meaning simply is, whatever I have tried to do 
in my life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that 
whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted mj'self 
to completely; that in great aims and in small I have been 
thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that 
any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from 
the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qual- 
ities, and hope to gain its end. Some happy talent and some 
fortunate opportunity may form the two sides of the ladder 
on which some men may mount, but the rounds of that lad- 
der must be made of stufT to stand the wear and tear; and 
there is no substitute for thorough going, ardent and sincere 
earnestness. Never to put my hand on anything on which 
I could not throw my whole self, and never, never to atfect 
depreciation of my work, whatever it was, I find now to 
have been my golden rules." 

In 1853 Mr. Douglas was again elected to the Senate. 
He had now acquired a national reputation. Men began to 
look to him as a Presidential candidate. The country was 
passing through the mighty throes of the slavery discussion. 
Lincoln was rising as the leader of the anti-slavery element, 
while Douglas stood for the vast undecided and conservative 
masses, that were willing to let it be controlled in each and 
every instance by a local vote. 

In the National Convention of 1852 Illinois had voted for 
him for President, and in 1856 his name was again pre- 
sented. Mr. Douglas was in Washington at the time the 
latter convention was in session. When the telegrams 
showed a growing inharmony in the deliberations incident 
to selecting a cadidate, Mr. Douglas telegraphed his friends 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 467 

to preserve the party and vote for whomsoever their strength 
would nominate. They voted for and nominated Mr. 
Buchanan. Two years after the memorable campaign of 
Lincoln and Douglas took place. Mr. Douglas had achieved 
a world-wide reputation. He had been a potent factor in 
shaping the legislation of his country for more than twelve 
years. Mr. Lincoln was not so widely known, but he was 
the recognized head of a rapidly growing party. The battle 
of the nation — the irrepressible conflict — was transferred 
to Illinois, and on her soil the chosen giants from the two 
sides were to have a hand-to-hand contest. 

That political field developed the most exciting and mem- 
orable campaign in history. It was preliminary to the 
Presidential struggle two years later. On the triumph of 
the senatorial battle now waging it was felt that the fate of 
i860 depended. The contestants spoke with the nation as 
an auditor, and the future of the government involved. 
Greek had met Greek, and the unyielding sinew of their 
respective characters was pushed to a terrible test of endur- 
ance. Neither faltered. Douglas was the greatest orator; 
Lincoln was the most commanding reasoner. The primary 
rights of humanity were involved. Mr. Douglas triumphed 
in the election, and was returned to the Senate. The posi- 
tion which Mr. Douglas took, Mr. Lincoln said, would 
destroy that gentleman's chances for the Presidency. He 
was too conservative for the South and too near a slavery 
man for the North. The prediction was verified. The 
Democratic convention at Charleston in i860 was unable 
to agree. The doctrine of Douglass had split the party. 
Mr. Breckenridge was nominated by the Democrats of the 
old school, and INIr. Douglas naturally became the candidate 
of the new departure. He entered the contest with a 



468 THE GENIUS OB' INDUSTRY. 

divided party, and the powers were arranged against liim. 
He also confronted the new party, glowing with the vio-or 
of young life and bounding with enthusiasm for slavery 
reform. The Republican party was rapidly creating public 
sentiment to the acceptance of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, as including blacks as well as whites, when it is said, 
" all men were created free and equal, and endowed with 
inalienable rights." The champion of Popular Sovereignty 
was in an unequal battle from the first. With nearly all the 
standard-bearers marshalled against him, who had hereto- 
fore cheered him on, he threw himself into the campaign, 
and the presence of Douglas was worth a thousand men. 
The dauntless spirit that had faced odds for a quarter of a 
century never flinched as he read the handwriting on the 
wall. Determined to do all he could do, his tremendous 
energies created a kindred zeal among his followers, but the 
prediction proved true, and he was overthrown b}' the ^'otes 
of Mr. Lincoln. 

The patriotism and integrity of Mr. Douglas were put to 
the test when the States of the South began to secede. He 
was an ambitious man, he was a strong party man, and had 
battled for power with all the persistence of a strong and 
determined nature. The man with whom he had had his 
hardest fights occupied the chair to which he had aspired 
for so many years. Caesar might now make his alliance and 
defeat Pompey on the plains. A civil war was imminent. 
Great and defeated rivals at Carthage had defeated aid and 
men to Hannibal, and finally he sank before the overwhelm- 
ing legions of Scipio; a wanderer from his native land, for- 
saken and poor, he died by his own hand. All the treason 
and personal malice of Douglas stood face to face with his 
rival who had defeated his personal aspirations and ruined 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 469 

his party. But the loyalty and heroism that Rome and 
Carthage did not know was held in the Douglas breast. 

On Sunday, the fourteenth of April, 1861, when the 
nation was trembling under the fall of Sumpter, Mr. Ash- 
mun, of INIassachusetts, called on Mr. Douglas, and asked 
that he go and assure the President of his cordial support in 
all needful measures. His reply was: "Mr. Lincoln has 
dealt hardly with me, and I don't know as he wants my 
ad\ice or aid." After further conversation, Mrs. Douglas 
entered the room and cast the weight of her affectionate 
influence to that of Mr. Ashmun. Mr. Douglas suddenly 
arose, and said he would trample on his resentment and see 
Mr. Lincoln. The two gentlemen reached the White House 
at dark, and found Mr. Lincoln alone. The life-long antag- 
onists together discussed the peril of the nation. 

Mr. Douglas evinced a fuller understanding of the purposes 
of the Southern leaders than the President had, and expressed 
the gravest apprehensions of the future. Mr. Lincoln took 
the proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand troops, 
which he had determined to issue the next day, and read it. 
When he had finished, Mr. Douglas rose from his chair and 
with much earnestness said: " Mr. President, I cordially con- 
cur in every word of that document, except that in a call for 
seventy-five thousand men, I would make it two hundred 
thousand. You do not know the determined and prepared 
purpose of these men as well as I do." He called Mr. Lin- 
coln's attention to a large map hanging back of his chair, and 
pointed out the stragetic points which should at once be 
strengthened for the coming contest. He then enlarged upon 
the firm and warlike course which should be pursued, while 
Mr. Lincoln listened with astonished interest, and the two old 



470 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

foes parted that night with their enmities buried and their 
hearts united in a single purpose. 

After leaving the President, Mr. Ashniun said to INIr. 
Douglas: "You have done justice to your own reputation and 
to the President, and the country must know it. The pro- 
clamation will go b}' telegraph all over the country in the 
morning, and the account of this interview must go with it. 
I will send it either in my own language or 3-ours. I prefer 
that you should give me your own version." Mr. Douglas 
said he would write it ; and so the dispatch went with the 
message wherever the telegraph would carry it, confirming 
the wavering of his own party, and helping to raise the tide of 
loyal feeling, among all parties and classes, to its flood. The 
dispatch was as follows : " Mr. Douglas called on the Presi- 
dent this evening, and had an interesting con\-ersation on the 
present condition of the countr}'. The substance of the con- 
versation was that while Mr. Douglas was unalterably 
opposed to the administration on all its political issues, he was 
prepared to sustain the President in the exercise of all his 
constitutional functions to preserve the Union, and maintain 
the government and defend the Federal capital. A firm pol- 
icy and prompt action were necessary. The capital of our' 
country was in danger and must be defended at all hazards, 
and at any expense of men or money. He spoke of the pres- 
ent and future without reference to the past." Mr. Douglas 
had done with his dreams of power, had done with the 
thought that compromise would save the country, and done, 
for the time at least, with schemes for party aggrandize- 
ment 

A few days after his interview with Mr. Lincoln, he was 
on his way home, and at Bellaire, Ohio, he was called out to 
make a speech. All parties received him with the greatest 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 471 

enthusiasm. Subsequently he addressed the Legislature of 
Illinois, and his own fellow-citizens at Chicago. The old 
party talk and the old party policy were all forgotten, and 
onl}' the sturdy, enthusiastic patriot spoke. The influence 
of Douglas cast on the side of secession would have divided 
the Union. 

The statesmanship of Mr. Douglas, while it was allied to 
his party, was absolutely pure and eminently American. He 
toiled for his party with all the energy of his nature, but he 
never intentionally subserved his government to its advance- 
ment. He recognized parties as the channels through which 
benefit or injury was brought to the whole people, and on the 
current of Democratic votes he sought to freight his country's 
good. Few men in the history of politics so frequently 
ignored the cherished doctrines of their party and sought to 
establish new ideas and principles. 

In 1853 Mr. Douglas visited Europe. His fame as a 
statesman and orator had preceded him, and caused him to 
be received with distinguished consideration. He bore with 
him to monarchial shores his sturdy devotioh to republican 
simplicity, and an unyielding estimate of the dignity of Amer- 
ican citizenship. His patriotic integrity to these principles 
cost him his presentation to the Court at St. James. While 
in London, he was to be presented to her Majesty. With 
the naming of the time, came a notice, that it was necessary 
to leave off his American costume and array himself in court 
dress. He protested, but the requirements of royal etiquette 
could not be evaded. He was informed that he must sub- 
mit to a change of costume, or be denied the presentation. 
Mr. Douglas promptly accepted the latter, and without an 
audience with her Queen, he quitted England an American 
citizen. 




fj;H^f;'yj;Hy^j^pj;. 



"Alas! he has not the gift of continuance." 

See first that the design is wise and just; 
That ascertained, pursue it resolutely; 
Do not for one repulse forego the purpose 
That you resoWed to effect. — Mills. 

Time and patience change the nnulberry leaf to satin. — Eastern Proverb. 

Labor is the price which the gods have set upon all that is excellent.- 
Pagans. 




p}^^mAi^Aq 




T is said that Robert Bruce, being defeated six times, 
fled before the armies of Edward in despair, seek- 
ing rest and a hiding-place in an old barn. While 
there he observed a spider which was endeavoring to weave 
a web in a window corner. Six times it strove to throw 
itself across from the wall to the window, and failed. But 
on the seventh effort it conquered. Having thus learned a 
lesson on perseverance, he buckled on his armor, renewed 
his courage, and went forth to victor}-. Both spider and 
warrior discovered that there was something more needed 
than the genius of creation. 

" The best laid schemes o' mice and men 
Gang aft agley." 

It was only by persistent attempt, changing his base of 
operations and his plans, and pushing through obstacles, that 
Bruce gained the day. Some of the most stupendous fail- 
ures history records were made by men who had genius of 
the first order but lacked wit to discern the importance of 
" magazines " of perseverance. Histor^• also informs us of 
giant deeds done b}' home-spun, but untiring workers — men 
who, although surpassed by many in brilliancy of intellect. 



474 THE OEXIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

combined, in their make-up, many of the unmistakable prop- 
erties for conquest. Some very discriminating thinkers have 
decided genius to be but another name for industry. But 
whatever the truth may be concerning it, we are in no 
danger of misunderstanding what perseverance is. Newton 
said he made his great discoveries by "alwa3's thinking into 
them." 

How many investigators will persevere, through every 
obstacle, to perfect knowledge.^ How many authoi-s will 
thus think through a subject.^ How many take pleasure in 
improving that which is already prepared to hand.^ How 
many have courage enough to give their own work a 
thorough revision.^ Who of my readers could have the 
patience of DeQuince}', who re-wrote portions of his Con- 
fessions sixty times, without feeling that they were consigned 
to the tread-mill for life.'' It is said that M. Thiers, the 
Jupiter of the French Assembly, committed, burned, and 
re-wrote every speech three times before he permitted him- 
self to deliver it. 

Notwithstanding the vast arra}' of facts that can be 
brought forth from history to this point, the world is still 
crazy in its pursuit after a '' genius," and insists that he can 
"shut his eyes and do the work with his left hand." We 
freely confess that some men seem to have a natural aptitude 
for preparation; but aptitude never did anything alone. 
Young men are pointed to Beecher and Spurgeon, Dom 
Pedro and Rothschild as examples of genius. These are 
mighty men, truly, but there is more than genius visible in 
their lives. Each of them puts through five or six common 
men's work every day the}- exist. They are not only gifted 
in seeing the main chance, but also in making that prepara- 
tion which shall enable them to seize it. Is not this one of 



PEBSEVEBAJfCE. 475 

the prerequisites to perseverance? Is it not one thing to 
snatch at an opportunity, and quite another to seize and 
hold it? The Latins used to say: "Opportunity has hair 
in front; behind she is bald; if you seize her b}- the forelock, 
you ma}' hold her; but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter him- 
self can catch her again." 

Boston possesses the latest intellectual prodigy: Rev. 
Joseph Cook has the physique of a Titan. He looks like a 
Scandinavian king let loose on our shores. He is both 
omnipresent and omniscient — seeing e\er3'thing, and read}' 
for everything. He flits from library to museum as though 
he were shot through a pneumatic tube. To-day, he is with 
Bronson Alcott, roaming the hills of Cambridge ; to-morrow, 
with Whittier, standing on the sea-blown coast of Newbury- 
port; then back again, with bent knee and uplifted hands, 
at the toinbs of Webster and Edwards, invoking their genius 
to inspire him. He catches his impulses from both the liv- 
ing and the dead. 

One hour he devotes to nature, the next to history and 
revelation. Every breeze and every book brings to him an 
atom of power; every man of note, in ev6ry age, becomes 
his positive or negative. He rushes from home to Tremont 
Temple like a money-jobber when gold falls six per cent., 
and mounts the rostrum, looking like an eagle, that 

" Watches from his mountain walls, 
And like a thunder-bolt he falls." 

His preludes, replete with brilliant remarks upon current 
events, contain more neatly-packed information than the 
editorials of a New York daily. His lecture proper resolves 
a problem into its simple elements with more thoroughness 
and ease than many an ambitious octavo. He manipulates, 
renews, adjusts and serves out theology to the magnates of 



476 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Boston with as much expertness and grace as though he 
were a Parisian dealing out confectionery to the princes of 
the Tuileries. His progress can not be impeded, his posi- 
tions contested, nor his rival found. The crooked-streeted, 
crooked-brained city of the sea sits dumb and pained under 
the strokes of his rhetorical flail. Every one feels that he 
must and he will have vent. Clarke and Hale, in his hands, 
are like rats in the jaws of an English terrier. Parker Pills- 
bury, himself a sufferer, exactly but bitterl}' expresses it, 
when admonishing another, in these laconic words: "Do 
not attack Mr. Cook! You can not strike the ding out of 
a cow-bell ! " 

No ! You can't ! Neither can you check the speed or 
break the power of an untiring giant, who has occupied his 
years in passing from nation to nation, librar}- to librar^•, 
school to school, and man to man, to gather up the knowl- 
edge he needs to do effective service for truth. This is the 
secret of success with Joseph Cook, added to which, for 
consideration, is his patient and thorough digestion, classifi- 
cation, and application of what he has acquired. 

Labor is not a curse, that men should be so religiously 
exact in freeing themselves from it ; neither is it disreputable. 
Study will only whet to a keener edge the sentences of an 
Everett or a Marshall. Of all the orators who have 
possessed an astonishing copiousness of words, only Patrick 
Henr}^ and the Pitts have stood the test of time. E^'en the 
brilliant Irish orator^ Phillips, knocks in vain for admission 
among recognized British masters. It seems to be the fate 
of such men to fall into oblivion. 

Ready speaking is unparliamentary in the House of 
Commons and Plouse of Lords. Unless " the noble gentle- 
man " hems and haws, and sings his slow monotone, he is 



PERSEVERANCE. 477 

looked upon with suspicion as one who is perpetrating a joke. 
They have found by long experience that the arguments 
that are fraught with grave matter, probing down to the 
quick of the subject, can not be glibbed oft" trippingly on the 
tongue. The ponderous thoughts of a Webster or a 
Brougham — thoughts that settle the destiny of States, and 
that are read five hundred years after delivery with a thrill 
of ecstasy, have but little oratorical jingle in them. Thej- 
are of slower, stronger growth than that, and brought forth 
with intenser travail. 

A straightforward, drudging perseverance will accomplish 
little without intellect to foster and sustain it. Intellect is 
necessary, also, to give it direction. There are farmers 
who woi'k just as hard as their neighbors, but never raise 
more than half the crop. They persist in driving the wedge 
broad end foremost. They put forth a surplus of exertion, 
but seem unskilled in adjusting it to the right place. They 
are like Irving's Dutchman, who, having a ditch to leap, 
went back so far to get a good run that when he got to the 
ditch he had to sit down to blow. 

In Xenophon's ISIemoirs, Socrates asks, " How is it that 
some men live in abundance and have something to spare, 
while others can scarcely obtain the necessaries of life, and 
at the same time run in debt.^ " Isomachus replies: " The 
reason is because the former occupy themselves with their 
business, while the latter neglect it." One may conduct 
business with energy and yet neglect it by misdirection. 
The difterence between men consists mainly in the amount 
of intelligence and energy they bring together. 

The advice of many lecturers on life and how to live it, 
is " to be up and at the first thing that comes along." But 
these blind and spasmodic efforts rarely accomplish much. 



478 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Decide on the direction your energ}' should take, first of all; 
then look down, for opportunity crouches at your feet. Life 
is too short, and vital force too much in demand for any 
labor to be thrown away on chance. 

Thomas Arnold declared that the dilTerence between two 
boys consisted in energy rather than talents. Many of the 
Rugby boys owe their fame and fortune to the good Doctor's 
appreciation of a prompt, herculean stroke. He instilled the 
principle of vigor into them till the}' were so full of it they 
leaped fences and ditches like race-horses. This, however, 
was all thoroughly controlled when they stepped w^ithin the 
school inclosure, for then they were on their honor. Such 
was his zeal for inculcating resolution that at times he was a 
trifle abrupt. One day he had been counseling a young 
man as to the necessity of seizing an occasion that had pre- 
sented itself. "Yes, Doctor! " said he, "I see the chance, 
and I'll strike when the iron is hot." " You're a fool," said 
the Doctor, " take up your hammer and make it hot." 

Many persons who have exhibited remarkable energy in 
one calling, rush into another, forgetting to take their train- 
ing with them. Ministers who have toiled for years in the 
study, under righteous resignation to a constant pulpit 
pressure, more exhausting in its influence than an air-pump, 
undertake literature, and are grief-stricken if, in six months, 
they are not written down as the peers of Bulwer and 
George Eliot. Thev forget the long stretch of failure these 
novelists stemmed before they began to monopolize atten- 
tion. Mayor Hall, after a decided success in politics and 
law, gained by relentless adhesion to business, imagined 
himself a born actor; but after impersonating a "born hero" 
in a most outrageous st3"le, he kicked off his buskins in 
despair and fled in shame to England. 



PERSEVERANCE. 479 

Olive Logan wrote saucy letters for the papers, and was 
on the road to universal favoritism, but was seized with the 
lecturing fever. One tour with her " Stage-Struck," so 
horrified her friends, that she said she would " play quits, 
drink Vichy, and push the quill." Anna Dickinson, winning 
merited applause on the platform by her advocacy of bold 
reformatory measures, conceived that the pleasure-seeking 
world lacked a tragedienne, and she took to the stage. She 
thought in one brief season to walk by the footlights to 
glory. But empty benches, unappreciative audiences, and a 
hurricane of criticism so upset this Joan of Arc that she sat 
down and cried like a school-girl. 

There are times when perseverence has been exercised 
with great success in maintaining a Chesterfieldian grace 
and politeness. This social art is important in the manage- 
ment of inen and measures. Persistent politeness often 
achieves what nothing else will. It was said to be more 
pleasure to be denied a*favor by the Duke of Marlborough, 
than to receive one from other men. He could turn the 
most inveterate enemy into a friend by a half -day's inter- 
course. His fascinating smile swayed the destinies of 
empires, and his charming tongue and bows " kept together 
the members of the grand alliance against France, and 
directed them, in spite of their clashing interests, their 
jealousies and perpetual dissensions, to the main object of 
the war.' 

The fascinating manners of Beau Brummel made him a 
welcome guest in every circle of society. He lived, courted 
and in splendor, without a dollar in his pocket. He was so 
captivating that even his tailor would sit up all night to fin- 
ish his suit of clothes, when he knew that all the compensa- 
tion he would get would be to bask in his smiles. It has 



480 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

even been said by wise ones that manners make the man. 
The}' certainly go a long way in making the gentleman. 

A serene temperament, a suave speech, and the gallantr}' 
of a Richelieu under petty annoyances, or before artful and 
stupendous opposition, will put to rout an opponent when an 
imperious mien will only serve to embolden him to greater 
resistance. The patience of a Bonaparte, who, in the face 
of winter and allied hosts, could dictate a kind letter to a 
tardy quartermaster " to hurry up those overcoats, as the boys 
were needing them," conquers armies; while the petulant 
man, who flies to pieces at each pro^■ocation, creates the 
defeat he fears. 

It is said that the sunshine never left the face of Speaker 
Colfax, even in the most excited debates or fierce wrangles 
over his decisions from the Chair. A happ}' manner was 
his key to the Speakership, and when he had smiled on the 
people, from Boston to San Francisco, the}' unanimoush' 
elected him Vice-President of the republic. His winning- 
graces, more than any speech he ever made, 'carried him to 
Congress for sixteen }-ears, and his self sacrifice in attending 
to every want, and answering kindly every letter, from his 
own district or that of any other member, made him, during 
his terms, the most popular representative in the House. 

Unfortunately, some of our moral reformers are in the 
habit of permitting themselves to become so exasperated at 
the world's ugliness before the}' start on their mission, that 
their invectives make callous rather than soften the people's 
hearts. Their severity calls for so much of our grace that we 
have nothing left for our own infirmities. William L. Yancey 
and Thad. Stevens were " mighty men of valor " for the 
days of battle, but to avert a war or secure peace their 
hands possessed no cunning. 



PERSEVERANCE. 481 

Alexander H. Stephens would pipe out of that frail tab- 
ernacle his cogent reasons for secession, and back them by 
his ruling as Vice-President of the Confederacy; but it was 
all done with such an ineffable sweetness of manner that the 
whole North admired him. Robert Toombs no sooner 
spoke than a yell of rage went up from every loyal throat. 
" It is not so much," said Mr. Lincoln, " in what he says as 
in the way he says it." Gail Hamilton will advocate 
" woman's rights " in a lecture and all the men will go away 
mad; Anna Dickinson will declare the same things on the 
next evening, and they will all turn away with a smile, and 
Relieve that Anna is about half right. 

This principle is vividly illustrated b}' one of Beecher's 
anecdotes. Two speakers, one an old Quaker and the other 
a young man full of fire, went out advocating the abolition 
of sla^'ery. When the Quaker talked the audience was all 
"ears;" ever3'thing went smoothly; the young nodded 
assent, and the thoughtful smiled approval. When the 
other man came to speak the trouble began; yells, and 
stones, and rotten eggs were their responses. It became so 
noticeable that he spoke to the Quaker about it. " Friend, 
you and I are on the same mission," said he, '' and preach 
the same things. How is it that, while you are received 
cordially, I get nothing but abuse .^ " The Quaker replied: 
" I will tell thee. Thee says — * If you do so and so, you 
will be punished,' and I say — ' If you will not do so and so 
you will not be punished.' " They both had the same idea, 
but there was a great deal of difference in the way they 
expressed it. 

It is soinetimes thought that courtesy is only another 
name for effeminacy, but the lives of man}' of the most val- 
orous sons of history assure us that true courage and civility 



482 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

go hand in hand. The charming grace of Hannibal, as a 
man, stands in striking contrast to his impetuosity as a 
soldier. Although trained by nature and parentage to 
impersonate eternal vengeance, it seemed only to increase 
his gallantry as a geptleman. It was his great sj'mpath}' 
for his soldiers that gave them heart to scale the Alps; and 
when munitions of war and rations were cut short, his win- 
ning ways did more to allay feeling and assuage distress 
among his own forces than his elephants had done to destroy 
the army of Scipio. Sir John Franklin never turned his 
back upon danger, and yet he was a man of ineffable tender- 
ness of soul. The Duke of Wellington was so habitually 
kind that, when sixty years old, he said: "I never had a 
quarrel with any man in my life." 

Grace is the crowning perfection of the toiler's character, 
and can only be won after long years of self-sacrifice and 
struggle. " A noble and attractive every-day bearing," sa3-s 
Huntingdon, " comes of goodness, of sincerity, of refine- 
ment. And these are bred in years, not moments. The 
principle that rules 3'our life is the sure posture-master. Sir 
Philip Sidney was the pattern to all England of a perfect 
gentleman; but then he was the hero that, on the field of 
Zutphen, pushed away the cup of cold water from his own 
fevered and parched lips, and held it out to the d^•ing soldier 
at his side." 

All men can not wait for results with equal resignation. 
DeMaistre says: "To know how to wait is the great 
secret of success." Temper in business, as in Christianity, 
is nine-tenths of the battle. A cool head and a quiet heart 
for the crown. Great ideas are not fruitful in an instant. 
They must have due time to root themselves down and 
germinate before they even appear above the surface. 



PERSE VERANCE. 483 

Abraham died in faith, looking forward to a harvest of fruit, 
which he, as an individual, never realized. His mind was 
in acute s}'mpathy with the growing ideas of the world. 
His pulse moved with the growing beat of human thought 
and eagerness. There was a wonderful life • and spirit, 
spring and joyousness in a man that could go out from 
home, in that day, to an unknown land, and settle down 
hopefully. But he was standing on the threshold of a new 
world, with his e3'es fixed on the future. 

Adam Smith sowed the seeds of social amelioration in the 
Wealth of Nations, but seventy years passed before an}' sub- 
stantial results could be gathered. Bacon, like Abraham, 
lived a prophetic life, scattering oracles and pregnant sayings 
into the darkness all about him. Luther died with but a 
Pisgah's glimpse of the land he had led the children of bond- 
age unto. 

• Among the literary workers, Sir Walter Scott exhibited 
greater perseverance, and perhaps received less credit for it, 
than any other known author. He did the drudgery of a 
lawyer's office for a long time, using his evenings to acquaint 
himself with favorite authors. As a copying-clerk he was 
allowed threepence a page. He sometimes copied one hun- 
dred and twenty pages daily, from which he saved thirty 
dollars, in our mone}-, a fund that supplied him with the 
means for purchasing a few new books. He prided himself 
upon being a man of business, and contradicted the cant of 
sonneteers, that there is a necessary connection between 
genius and a contempt for the common duties of life. 

While clerk to the Court of Sessions, at Edinburgh, he per- 
formed his literary work chiefly before breakfast, attending 
the court during the da}'. " On the whole," says Lockhart, 
" it forms one of the most remarkable features of his history 



48i THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

that, throughout the most active period of his Hterary career 
he must ha^'e devoted a large portion of his hours, during half 
at least of every year, to the conscientious discharge of profes- 
sional duties." "On one occasion, he said: "I determined 
that literature should be my staff, not my crutch, and that the 
profits of my literary labor, however convenient otherwise, 
should not, if I could help it, become necessary to my ordi- 
nary expenses." 

He answered every letter the day it was received. Only 
his clock-like punctuality, cultivated in that lawyer's office, 
could ever have enabled him to keep abreast of the flood of 
communications that poured in upon him. He rose at five, 
dressed with deliberation, took a copious drink of water fresh 
from the well, and by six sat down to his work. Every 
paper stood before him in military order; the books of refer- 
ence were marshaled around him on the floor; and one hand- 
some dog, some times two, guarded the anterior line. At 
nine he went to breakfast, '' having done enough to break 
the neck of the day's work." With all his knowledge and 
wonderful industry, he spoke of his own powers with the 
greatest of diffidence. On one occasion he said, " Throughout 
every part of my career I have felt pinched and hampered 
by my own ignorance." 

Compte de Buflbn illustrated his own saying, that " Genius 
is patience," by his tireless industry. I extract an account 
of him from Smiles' Self-Help, and am thereto indebted lor 
the previous illustration: 

" Notwithstanding the great results achieved by him in 
natural history, Buflbn, when a 3-outh, was regarded as of 
mediocre talents. His mind was slow in forming itself, and 
slow in reproducing what it had acquired. He was also con- 
stitutionally indolent; and, being born to good estate, it might 



PERSEVERANCE. 485 

be supposed that he would indulge his liking for ease and 
luxury, instead of which, he early formed the resolution of 
denying himself pleasure, and devoting himself to study and 
self-culture. Regarding time as a treasure that was limited, 
and finding that he was losing many hours by lying abed in 
the mornings, he determined to break himself of the habit. 
He struggled hard against it for some time, but failed in being 
able to rise at the hour he had fixed. He then called his 
servant, Joseph, to his help, and promised him the reward of 
a crown every tiine that he succeeded in getting him up 
before six. At first, when called, Buftbn declined to rise — 
pleaded that he was ill, or pretended anger at being disturbed ; 
and on the Count at length getting up, Joseph found that he 
had earned nothing but reproaches for ha\'ing permitted his 
master to lie abed contrary to his express orders. At length 
the valet determined to earn his crown; and again and again 
he forced Buftbn to rise, notwithstanding his entreaties, expos- 
tulations, and threats of immediate discharge from his serv- 
ice. One morning Buffon was unusually obstinate, and Joseph 
found it necessar}' to resort to the extreme measure of dash- 
ing a basin of ice-cold water under the bed-clothes, the effect 
of which was instantaneous. By the persistent use of such 
means Buftbn at length conquered his habit; and he was 
accustomed to say that he owed to Joseph three or four vol- 
umes of his Natural Histor}'." 

John Leyden was a Roxburghshire shepherd boy, who, 
while watching the ftocks from the hill-side that overlooked 
the little valley, taught himself to write by copyhig- the let- 
ters of a printed book. Like Ferguson, who became an 
astronomer while " tending sheep on the knolls," so Leyden's 
mind lifted above the sheep, and was not contented without 
a book. A bare-footed boy, he walked across the moors 



486 THE GENIUS OF INDUtiTRT. 

some eight miles e\-ery da}-, to recite liis reading lesson to 
the dominie at Kirkton; the remainder of his education he 
acquired himself, by dint of hard study and what lie could 
gather from the manor-men who were willing to answer 
" that troublesome boy's questions." At last he bid poverty 
defiance, and entered college at Edinburgh. He gained his 
first notoriet}- by the frequency of his visits to Archibald Con- 
stable's corner — the book store. It was his wont to climb a 
ladder — for he had been so used to the hills — and balancing 
himself at the top, he would sit for hours, poring over some 
huge volume, forgetting the rye bread and water that waited 
for his appetite to whet up to a relish of its brain-building 
power. 

To read a book or hear a lecture supplied the cravings of 
his lite as nothing else could. " Thus he toiled and battled 
at the gates of science, until his unconquerable persever- 
ance carried every thing before it." At the age of twenty 
he astonished the faculty of Edinburgh by the vastness of 
his general information, and could quote more Greek and 
Latin than an}' professor in the school. He longed to go to 
India, but had not the means. A surgeon's commission was 
given him, but he knew no more of medicine than one of his 
pet lambs. He could learn. He must pass examination in 
six months. Without a thought of failure, he set to work 
to acquire in six months what usually required three }ears. 
He took his degree with honor, and even found time, before 
he embarked, to publish his poem on The Scenes of Infancy. 

Some of the most illustrious achievements on mechanics 
and literature have been the natural product of persever- 
ance. Their authors little anticipated the vast results that 
were to flow from them. The}- did the work to meet a 
present demand, and their indomitable energ}- dro\-e them 



PERSEVERANCE. 487 

on until their labor was crowned with a perfection that will 
be fruitful fore\-er. When those sturdy old fathers, who 
had to make their " mark," wrung Magna Charta from 
King John, for their present amelioration, they had no 
thought of buttressing the people's rights until England 
would become liberal and America free, so that a inan 
should be as great as a king. Man is so constructed that, 
if he will let any good desire within him have its perfect 
work, results will grow out of it his philosophy never 
dreamed of 

When George Stephenson contrived to turn the waste 
steam of his engine up the chimney, so as to lessen the noise 
of its escape, he had no conception of the beneficial results 
accruing to mechanics. When he projected the self-acting 
incline along the declivity of the Willington ballast-quay, 
he did not know that this invention of his brain would take 
new form in an engine bearing a thousand lives over moun- 
tain and valley, at the rate of forty miles an hour. Milton 
toiled for long months over Paradise Lost. His soul was 
full of the great thought, and he must wreak it out in an 
epic, though it was labor like forging iron from the blast. 
He loved the darling child, but when Jacob Tonson, the 
publisher, said he could give but £5 for such a work, no 
wonder genius paled when it came to Paradise Regained. 
Could Milton have known that in one hundred years the 
copyright would be worth one hundred thousand dollars, 
and his heaven-born raptures would feed the imagination of 
orators and poets innumerable, he would have felt that his 
persistence in having every sentence "just so," would have 
its own reward. 

No less forcible are the examples where conscientious 
efibrt to do the whole duty has borne its high results. The 



488 TUB GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

mighty reformation of John Wesley started in his endeavor 
to promote personal piety among the inembers of the Estab- 
lished Church. HoHness gained such an impetus b}' the 
godly man's life and persistent proclamation, that the Estab- 
lishment was not large enough to contain it. The tidal- 
wave of a " new consecration " swept o\er the breakwaters 
of sectarianism, and before Mr. Wesley's death, the Metho- 
dist itinerant's voice rang from Christ's Hospital to the 
jungles of Africa, and across the forests and rivers of the 
new continent. Everywhere people were made to feel the 
warmth which a " little fire " had kindled. 

The Syn-Chronological Chart of S. C. Adams had its 
origin in the author's efforts to illustrate to a Sunday school 
the contemporaneous events of history. Like the young 
artist who took his first lessons in drawing with a burnt 
stick on a barn door, Adams undertook to exhibit the religi- 
ous and profane history of the same date, by lines and pic- 
tures drawn on a " sheet of foolscap." The efforts soon 
interested the entire school. The author early found them 
of value to himself in his studies, and they came to be a 
necessity in the day-school room. Finall}*, after ten years 
of labor — labor such as few men have ever given to any sub- 
ject — he has knocked the tangle out of the web of history, 
and put on his can\'as, to the comprehension of a single 
glance, the contemporaneous acts, inventions, discoveries, 
and founding and deca}' of empires, as the nations have 
marched down the path of time — a volume of inestimable 
value to school-room, scholar, and statesman. 

The greater portion of the illustrious men of England 
have come from the ranks, notwithstanding it is a land of 
caste and inheritance. And the difficulty of attaining a suc- 
cess that will be recognized in such a land, can hardly be 



PERSEVERANCE. 489 

appreciated in this country. Admiral Hobson was a tailor's 
apprentice, but the appearance of a squadron of men-of-war 
excited in him a desire for the sea. Accepted on board as 
a volunteer, he fled the shop without warning, but twenty 
years afterward, full of honor, he came back to the cottage 
at Bonchurch, and dined off bacon and beans. When he 
broke the boom at Vigo, he broke the back of caste, and 
wrenched from the king's hand an admiral's hat. Sir 
Cloudesley Shovel began his career as a cabin-boy, and 
Cook, the navigator, worked many 3-ears as a common day- 
laborer. Noticing some handsomely-dressed bo3s at Eaton, 
Lagrange said, " Had / been rich, I should probably not 
have become a mathematician." 

The elegant and eloquent John Erskine had the upper- 
blood in his veins, but it was unfortunatel}" not backed bj' 
the necessary passport to society. Miserably poor, but 
grandly defiant of his fortunate relations, he said : " Indus- 
try is worth more than a peerage;" and his name to-day 
outranks them all, and he is the peer of peers. Shakspeare's 
family was so humble that he never cared to reveal its true 
character, and he has left only the impression that he was a 
wool-comber; but he has been set down as a scrivener's 
clerk, usher, and many other things. Like Charles Dickens, 
the battlings of his early years, from pillar to post, wherever 
a penny or a crust might be earned, made him " all man- 
kind's epitome." 

The many parts he had played gave him an inexhaustible 
bank, whence he checked out passion and speeches for his 
players. " For such is the accuracy of his sea phrases that 
a naval writer alleges that he must have been a sailor; while 
a clergvman infers, from internal evidence of his writings 
that he was probably a parson's clerk; and a distinguished 



490 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

judge of horse flesh insists that he must have been a horse- 
dealer." When he played at the theater, he was known 
to spend the greater part of his nights after the '• piece " in 
writing — while the inspiration was on him ^ and the day 
was given to the stud}' of history. His writings have doubt- 
less exercised a powerful influence on the morals of the 
English throne, and been a large factor in molding the char- 
acter of the nation. 

Even the peerage itself has "stooped " and plucked many 
of its brightest stars from the ranks. Smiles says: "One 
reason why the peerage of England has succeeded so well 
in holding its own, arises from the fact that, unlike the peer- 
ages of other countries, it has been fed, from time to time, by 
the best industrial blood of the country — the ver}^ '' liver, 
heart and brain of Britain." Like the fabled Antaeus, it has 
been invigorated and refreshed by touching its mother earth, 
and mingling with that most ancient order of nobility — the 
working order." 

Lord Tenterden was a barber's son. Family necessities 
compelled the father to keep the boy to shave the commoner 
class and stick on the leeches. It is thought he bled as 
many with the razor as he did with the leeches; but on the 
father's death, the shop was abandoned, and the bo}' went 
to shift for himself. He could whistle and sing, but that 
was about all he seemed good for; so his mother sought for 
him a place in the choir at the cathedral. Here he remained 
a few months, and was then displaced by a former singing 
rival. 

This disapointment diverted his thought to another chan- 
nel, and changed his whole career. He determined to do 
something in which he could rel}- on himself, and he did it. 
His struggle for independence was severe and long, but, be- 



PEBSEVERANCE. 491 

cause he was independent, he succeeded. He conquered 
the King's Bench, and took his seat as Lord Chief Justice. 
When he and Mr. Justice Richards were tra\'eling the Home 
Circuit together, the}- attended services at the old cathedral; 
and on the Justice complimenting the voice of a certain man 
in the choir. Lord Tenterdcn replied: "Ah! that is the only 
man I ever envied! When at school in this town we were 
candidates for a chorister's place, and he obtained it." 

Many a young man is forever ruined because he gets an 
agency or clerkship, and feels certain of fifty dollars a month. 
He looks fondly forward to the time when he will be pro- 
prietor of that business himself, but he feels happ}' o\er his 
fifty dollars, with little to do. He never feels a need of put- 
ting his idle moments in — to do for his employer such extra 
work as was not bargained for. He never feels that he is 
one of the partners of that firm, and that its success is his 
advancement — he never studies the steps that led the head 
of the firm into his present position — nor seems to realize 
that his doing more work than any man in the employment 
is what keeps him there. These are the things clerks that 
sit around never think of. They despise the spirit of the 
cellar drudgery that brought Frank Longley to an affluent 
partnership. They propose to glide their way over a gilt 
track, riding into preferment upon a palace car. 

Never accept a clerkship except as a stepping-stone. Use 
it as a means of rising higher. It saps all the independence 
out of a man. It breaks down his spirit. It destroys his 
self-reliance, and frequently turns him into a ninn}-. Better 
control your own business at five hundred a year than fag 
for another at a thousand. You may not make so much 
money — though we believe it is not the experience of 



492 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

clerks now-a-days to grow rich — but in mental thrift and 
manhood }ou will clear a large per cent. 

Push on to victory. Rather than settle down satisfied 
with a moderate stipend, muster up courage and " go 
West" — GO TO THE WOODS — GO ANYWHERE that 
shall compel you to assert your individuality; and, from the 
scaffolding of genuine exertion, build up a genuine manhood, 
calling no man master. 

Lord Langdale was on the brink of despair several times 
before the world recognized his talents, and even then he 
did not reach fame by any sudden flight. Born the 
son of a poor surgeon, he was educated for that profession. 
But limited practice and extreme povert}^ served to increase 
young Bickersteth's dislike for a calling that had been 
distasteful to him from the very beginning. He now deter- 
mined to plead at the bar. 

Slowl}' his star advanced. His mind was burdened, night 
and day, by the cause of his client, as the river bears the 
great vessel to its destiny. And there were no rapids in his 
current — it was a steady, straightforward stream. He never 
said a brilliant thing, but he was always profoundly in 
earnest. He never made a great speech, but he always 
made a good one. He never did anything for glor}'. He 
was a conscientious worker. He always knew the law in 
the case, and knew how to apply it. His perseverance and 
honest work brought to his door more clients than he could 
wait upon, and the afternoon of his life was crowned with 
wealth and reputation, and a seat in the House of Peers, as 
Baron Langdale. 

Lord EUenborough was a man of the Dr. Johnson stamp, 
so conscious of his superiority over common men that it 
marred everything he said and did. But though destined to 



PEBSEVEUANCE. 493 

attain merit he did not attempt it at the neglect of persever- 
ance. He knocked at the door of the Inner Temple several 
years longer than Langdale before it opened unto his com- 
mand. He never tired of study. He would turn the old, 
musty law records over and over, with peculiar delight. 
And at times, when he grew sated with all study and no 
practice, he would get down his great motto that he had 
scrawled on a paste-board square: " Read or starve,'' and 
feast his aching eyes, until his stomach asked for another 
book. 

Just before his unlooked-for employment as one of the 
attorney's of Warren Hastings he wrote this to Archdeacon 
Coxe: " Let us cheerfully push our wa}' in our different 
lines; the path of neither of us is strewed with roses, but 
they will terminate in happiness and honor. I can not, how- 
ever, now and then help sighing, when I think how inglorious 
an apprenticeship we both of us serve to ambition, while you 
teach a child the rudiments and I drudge the pen for attor- 
ne3's. But if knowledge and a respectable position are to 
be purchased only on those terms, I, tor ni}- part, can readil}' 
say, Hac me)-cede placet.'''' 

Position and wealth are not able to cope with perse- 
verance. Many jealous do-nothings prate about the power 
of money and aristocracy. But the Samsons tear off 
the gates of this Gaza, and pass through their walls at 
pleasure. 

The most distinguished divines have come to eminence 
•over a thorny path, and some of them have traveled to 
Jerusalem by the "Jericho road." No poor traveler that 
had been set upon by thieves was ever left in a more piteous 
plight than John Wesley, when he started for the pulpit, 
having just closed an " interview " with his wife, the " widow 



494 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Vizelle." Henr}' Ward Beecher began his pulpit efforts on 
three hundred dollars a year, was preacher, pastor and 
sexton, and sa}'s he was glad of the chance. With all his 
splendid talents, nothing short of perseverance that amounted 
almost to a lofty genius, enabled Francis Wa3'land to 
become President of Brown Uni\ersity, and stamp the 
literature of his denomination with a new life. So poor he 
was able to take but one theological year at Andover; so 
poorly clad he was kept out of society while there; so proud 
he would neither beg nor borrow, lor the rayless future gave 
no hope of means to repay; so determined to get on that, 
when he had to decide between an overcoat and Schleusner's 
Lexicon, he walked fast or sta\'ed at home to supply the 
need of a coat, and bought the book; so resolved to adorn 
his profession that, in spite of these harassments and 
slender opportunities, he retii^ed from Andover in great 
credit, and so accomplished that he stepped to the pastorate 
of the First Baptist Church in Boston. 

His first great effort at discourse, " The Moral Dignity 
of the Missionary Enterprise," created no impression, and 
was a complete failure. But, it " happened " to be pub- 
lished, and created such an interest that it ran through 
several editions. It put a new missionary spirit into his own 
brethren, and rekindled the smoldering fires in many dying 
societies. Within three years from that sermon he went to 
the Presidency of Brown University. 

Xavier Thiriat was of poor parentage, and at ten years of 
age became so helplessly crippled that he could onl}' move 
about by crawling on his hands and knees. But the little 
boy who had plunged into the water and received a life-par- 
alysis in the saving of a child, was father to the man; for 
the invincible vim of his after life was doubtless indicated 



PEliSEVERAJSlCE. 495 

by the bravery of his boyhood. He borrowed books, for 
the family could not buy, and paid the little girl who 
brought and returned them by telling her the stories he 
read. His newspaper articles soon attracted attention, and 
money and opportunities for his labor soon showered upon 
him. But he scorned to be a pauper, and contended that 
" perseverance was all any man needed, blind or halt, to 
earn a living." He became a botanist, meteorologist, and 
geologist, and won the gold medal of the French Franklin 
Society. 

Even the sublimest of arts, oratory, the great masters tell 
us, is not born, but cultivated, in men. ^Eschines won the 
affections of the people, and bore his vast audiences on the 
tide of his rolling sentences to the haven of his conclusions, 
as the mighty waves bear onward the great ships. But no 
man appreciated more keenl}^ the value of preparation, and 
he surel}' paid the successful man's price for the great repu- 
tation he acquired. Half the day, for twenty-five days 
before delivering a certain oration, was spent in the practice 
of gesture, posture, modulation and emphasis ; and the other 
half was spent in sharpening his sentences and polishing his 
words. He claimed that no man could become a great 
orator without incessant drill. To this end he established 
his famous school, to which even Cicero went, and, doubt- 
less, by so doing, won much of his perfection. 

England has perhaps produced no greater orator than Sir 
Robert Peel. A man of ordinary abilities, he came, by 
cultivation, to be the most persuasive speaker in the House 
of Commons. At five years of age, his father would stand 
him on a table and sa}-: " Robin, make us a speech, and I 
will give you this cherry." The family never failed to 
applaud the efibrts of the little fellow, and on doing better 



496 TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

than usual, the fathei- would pat him on the head, and say: 
" Well done, my boy! }"ou'll make the powdered wigs trem- 
ble some day." He would read a passage in a book every 
day, and, while his father held the book, would declaim as 
much of it as he could. On coming from the parish church 
of a Sunday morning, he passed at once to the study, and 
rehearsed all of the sermon he could remember, and then 
criticised the pronunciation and style of the preacher. Thus 
his habit of attention grew powerful, and at the age of 
twenty he could repeat an hour's speech almost verbatim. 
When he came in Parliament to reply to the " all-day 
speeches " of his opponents, and, without notes, took up the 
arguments in succession, stating them clearly and fully, to 
the astonishment of his hearers and defeat of his adversary; 
no one suspected that old Drayton Church and the drill of 
an ambitious father had made him this Mirabepu of the 
House. 

Wendell Phillips is a man of extraordinary parts by nature, 
but even he did not become " the most splendid orator of 
America " until, like Michael Angelo (who often went a 
week without taking off his clothes), he brought himself to 
the head of his profession by study, and not b}' genius. 
After having selected a subject on which to write, he cons 
it over for weeks, so that the mind becomes thoroughly 
saturated with it, oozing at every pore. He then shuts him- 
self up for days, giving way wholly to the thought. B}' 
this time he has digested every idea connected with the 
theme ; then, as the mountain can not hold its volcanic force 
in chains forever, so with pen and paper he finds vent, let- 
ting the pent-up lava of his soul burst 'forth. The speech 
once written, one would think the work done; but it has just 
begun. 



PERSEVERANCE. 497 

With reference-books he examines every statement; then, 
controlled by his high standard of vigor and brevity, he cuts 
and slashes through sentences and paragraphs, paring, slic- 
ing, splitting, or rooting out summarily. Thus he purges 
away all the dross, and leaves only pure metal. Now he 
takes dictionary and thesaurus, and travels patiently over 
every word, expunging every one of double or doubtful 
meaning, replacing with the simplest phrases, yet the richest 
and inost comprehensive that language atibrds. This lec- 
ture, that now stands, like the queen's crown, valuable 
"within itself, but dazzling with the luster of its precious set- 
tings, is next committed to memory, and then the painstak- 
ing care of a Charles Sumner before his full-length mirror, 
training every facial expression and posture of arm, sets him 
to the production in ferfectio7i. Now, and not until now, 
he opens his lips on the rostrum. Scholars are delighted 
with his ornate periods, and astonished at the precision of 
his knowledge; and, while he buries his great audiences 
under a mass of information, it is all done with such ease 
that they look upon it only as an outburst of the great 
-oracle. 

How many " impromptu bursts of genius " that astonish 
the court, melt the pew-holders, or cave in the heads of the 
hardy yeomanry, by their Titanic grasp, ha\'e been elabor- 
ated in the study will never be known. But, fortunately for 
the encouragement of the struggling youth of our day, 
almost all of the " giants " have left on record denials of 
spontaneous power; they have persisted that their knowl- 
edge came by slow accretions, as the insects build the coral 
strands; and that the ability to utilize effectively these 
acquirements, was only attained after years of persevering 
application. 



498 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

These giants are, with rare exceptions, seH-made men. 
Inured to toil; used to knocking every obstacle out of their 
way with a sledge-hammer.; in the habit of toiling like the 
very beasts of the field, and eating their meals with a drip- 
ping brow, they become so accustomed to paying out labor 
for all they get, that a result not self-purchased would startle 
them beyond measure. Thus' these men unselfishly toil, and 
their simple-hearted virtue becomes their lever of prefer- 
ment. 

Colonel Baker graphically pictured our successful men in 
one sentence of his masterly oration over the murdered 
Broderick: "He rose unaided and alone; he began his 
career without family or fortune, in the face of difficulties ; 
he inherited poverty and obscurity; hfe died a Senator in 
Congress, having written his name in the history of the 
great struggle for the rights of the people, against the 
despotism of organization, and the corruption of power.' 

Colonel Baker himself was a self-made man, and one of 
the most entrancing of orators. On his return from the 
Mexican war, in an ovation that was tendered him, he deliv- 
ered one of the most eloquent speeches of his life, and 
apparently on the spur of the moment. A curious literary 
friend said to him next da}': "Colonel, how long did it 
take you to get up that speech.'' " " Fort3'-two years, sir." 
Baker was just that age. Edward Everett once assigned 
as his reason for declining to deliver an oration before an 
Eastern college, that he had " but six weeks for prepara- 
tion." 

Facility is gained by labor. Any man of mediocre tal- 
ents ma}- acquire excellence in the field of his predilections, 
and may acquire it with great rapidity, if he will serve a 
long enough apprenticeship. But unless one will practice a 



PERSEVERANCE. 499 

half-hour a day for fifteen years, in extempore speaking, as 
Henry Clay did, he need not expect his impromptu efforts 
to be remembered ver}- long. To be able, with The Wizard 
of the North — Sir Walter Scott — to fling off forty pages a 
day, and send them to the press without a revising glance, 
demands his patient drill and thirty years of perseverance. 
If, with Gibbon, you would send " the last three quarto 
volumes of an immortal history uncopied to the press," you 
must first spend a life-time in getting ready to do it. If 
you would have the golden speech of John Philpot Curran, 
whose commonest utterance in conversation gleamed with a 
luster that Chesterfield could not impart to his most polished 
sentence, take those lips to a master, and assiduously guard 
the inflection of every syllable. 

The great conversers, writers, and orators have gone 
through an amount of study , memorizing, and copying, that of 
itself would be more work than most men perform in a life- 
time. Opie, the painter, was never satisfied with any of his 
works, and while giving the finishing strokes to his pictures, 
would step back to scrutinize. Beholding the deformity that 
his eye alone could detect, with a groan of despair he would 
rush into his wife's sitting-room, and flinging himself on the 
sofa, exclain: "I know I shall never make a painter!" 
That inability to do justice to his conceptions was the scor- 
pion which stung him up to produce immortal works. The 
difference between ephemeral and immortal works, in nine- 
tenths of the cases, consists in the polish that perseverance 
puts on. 

Thomas Erskine, whose matchless gestures and mellifluous 
tones doubtless added a great deal to the force of his sen- 
tences, acknowledged that persistent study of Burke assisted 
the graces of his own generous diction more than any thing 



500 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

else. He possessed a passion for this autlior, reading him so 
constantly that he could quote many of his eloquent strains, 
page after page, almost verbatim. It was the tranfusing of 
Burke's higher self into his own flexible and adroit nature — 
a very happy oratorical cross — that gave the world a style 
as original as it was dashing and elegant. 

Lord Chesterfield tells us he determined to acquire a pol- 
ished diction while yet a school-bo}', and set himself to the 
task like a work-horse. He carefully treasured e^■el•y bril- 
iant sentence in a lecture, and carried it from the hall, in a 
book prepared for that purpose. No new word could escape 
the devouring ear of this Dionysius; no elegant phrase in con- 
versation missed his grasp; no old word came up in a new 
setting, but he would snatch it as a pilferer would a " diamond 
set to gold," and make off with it to his den. He copied 
every fine passage he met with in reading, and filled whole 
blank-books with these elegancies translated forward and 
backward through the German, French, and English, and 
sometimes through Greek and Latin. B}' this method he 
sought to seize the richness of every tongue, and pour it on 
to his English page. A certain eloquence, he says, at last 
became habitual to him, and it would have given him more 
trouble to express himself inelegantl}' than ever he had taken 
to avoid the defect. 

Twelve years on the coast with a mouthful of pebbles was 
not able to make Demosthenes the orator of the ages. No; 
he spoke in Athens, and something more than gesture and 
intonation was required. He must have words — not simple 
fluency, but words — mint-coined; words " to express the 
most varying emotions of the mind by a suitable and ever- 
changing rhythm;" words echoing thunder and bursting with 
lightning; words inspired by the associations of the Areopa- 



PEliSEVERANCE. 501 

gus, and marshaled to order b}- the "Master of Arts." To 
this end did the orator of Atl:iens transcribe Thucydides 
again and again. And it is this splendid citadel of sculptured 
sentences that has maintained his eloquence through the cen- 
turies. 

Moore wrote with the patience of Gray and the fastidious- 
ness of Pope. He said that " labor is the parent of all the 
lasting wonders of the world." Truly did he labor on that 
little wonder, Lalla Rookh. After he had spent years in 
gathering the materials, scouring over Persia and all the 
Orient for illustrations, and had the work largely toward com- 
pletion, he several times came near gi\'ing it up in despair. 
Nothing but his children cr3"ing for bread, and the prospect 
of three thousand pounds when the poem was through the 
press, ever brought it to completion. He worried over each 
word, like Virgil over the ^Eneid, and not a single line was 
published as it was originall}' penned. Goldsmith composed 
The Traveler at the rate of twenty lines a day; but Moore 
felt that ten lines was a leviathan's load. He was continu- 
ally searching for the right word. Washington Irving was 
once riding in the streets of Paris with Moore, when their 
hackney coach, plunging into a deep rut, came out with such 
a jerk as to send their heads against the roof. "By Jove! 
Fve got it f'' cried Moore, clapping his hands with glee. 
"Got what.^" said Irving. " Wh}'," said the poet, "that 
Tvord I've been hunting for six weeks, to complete my last 
song. That rascally driver has jolted it out of me." 

Many pages might be filled recounting the patient perse- 
verance of our own great writers and speakers — of Webster, 
Marshall, Calhoun, and Clay; of Whittier, Longfellow, Bry- 
ant, and Holmes; of Edward Everett, Washington Irving, 
and James Russell Lowell — men who traveled over conti- 



50a TEE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

nents of books for illustrations, and ground every sentence 
down on the refining-stone of criticism till it flashes like a 
dew-drop. 

The men of science have exhibited as great perseverance 
as any other workers, although they are less certain of 
results than the trader, speaker and writer. Sir Humphrey 
Davy extemporized the greater part of his instruments for 
experimenting out of the odd pans and vessels in the back 
room of the drug-store. Faraday heard one of Davy's lect- 
ures, and while yet a book-binder, began his electrical 
experiments with an old bottle. When twenty years of age, 
Davy registered in his note book, in his hopeful way the deter- 
mination of his life: "I have neither riches, nor power, nor 
birth to recommend me; yet, if I live, I trust I shall not be 
of less service to mankind and m}' friends than if I had been 
born with these advantages." The apothecary's boy finall}' 
bid adieu to his mortar and pestle, and went to the head of 
the Royal Institution of London. 

Cuvier, the distinguished French naturalist, fortunately 
discovered a volume of Buffon, when he was ten years old, 
and by the time he was twelve had all the " animals of cre- 
ation " painted on bits of paper, and he knew their names 
and descriptions by heart. The Duke of Wurtemberg sent 
him to the Academy of Stuttgart, where one of the profes- 
sors gave him a copy of the System of Nature, by Linnoeus, 
and this was his librar}' on natural history for eight years. 
While tutor for a family in Normand}', he found a cuttle- 
fish stranded on the beach. It was the first practical lesson 
that had ever been presented to him, so he took it home, 
and alone in his room with the fish and his one book, he 
commenced the study of the mollusk. 

He then began his comparisons of fossils with living 



PERSEVERANCE. 503 

species, spending every spare hour from the school-room in 
the one research. He raced the country over, through bog 
and fen, rocky hill and ocean beach, until his health was seri- 
ously impaired. The obscure youth felt so positive that there 
ought to be a reform in the classification of animals, that he 
ventured to write to Geoffrey St, Hilaire, suggesting it. 
When Abbe Teissier wrote up to Paris, making the young 
naturalist's bow for him, he said: "You remember that it 
was I who gave Delambre to the Academy in another 
branch of science. This also will be a Delambre." The 
professors discovered that young Cu\ier, in the poverty of 
his Normandy fastness, while fondling the living and dissect- 
ing the dead, had carved out a new path for natural science 
in which she must hereafter walk. Meanwhile Cuvier 
steadily pursued his observations and writings, thus fulfilling 
Teissier's prediction. 

The Italian cardinal, Beinbo, found time to slip from the 
arms of the beautiful Morosina, and could leave his duties 
as secretary to Leo X long enough to " promote " 
his essays and dissertations. He had a writing desk with 
thirty pigeon-holes. When an article was written it was 
placed in hole one. When he found time he would come 
back and go over it carefulh' and advance it to the next. 
At another time he would cull out or add to, and send it a 
step higher, and so on he would go with unwearied patience 
until the article had scaled the last ditch, and then it was 
ready for the bishops and cardinals. 

When Robert Hall was correcting his sermon on Modern 
Infidelity, on coming to that famous passage, " Eternal God, 
on what are Thy enemies intent.'' What are those enter- 
prises of guilt and horror, that for the safety of their 
performers require to be enveloped in a darkness which the 



504 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

eye of Heaven must not penetrate?" — he exclaimed to Dr. 
Gregory: ^^ Petietrate! did I say -penetrate.! sir, when I 
preached it? " " Yes." "Do you think, sir, T may venture 
to alter it? for no man who considers the force of the En- 
glish language would use a word of three syllables there but 
from absolute necessity. For -penetrate put pierce — pierce 
is the word, sir, and the only word to be used there." Sher- 
idan used to go to hear Rowland Hill, because his ideas 
" came red-hot.'''' The golden-mouthed Chrysostom prepared 
his sermons with painful care, while Beecher is so desirous 
of being understood that words of four s}'llables are almost 
strangers to his sermons. 

Example is infectious. To this end, the great Apostle 
said: " Provoke one another to good works." The Chinese 
knew the worth of this lash, and started their anecdote be- 
fore the Apostle's injunction: "A student threw down his 
book, disheartened, when, seeing a woman rubbing a crow- 
bar on a stone, he inquired the reason, and was told she 
wanted a needle, and thought she would rub down the crow- 
bar until she got it small enough. Provoked b}^ her 
example of patience, he resumed his studies, and became 
one of the three foremost scholars in the Celestial Empire." 
On being asked his secret, Turner replied: "I have no 
secret but hard work. This is a secret that many never 
learn, and they don't succeed because they don't learn it. 
Labor is the genius that changes the world from ugliness to 
beauty, and the great curse to a great blessing." 




'ok?! Yn 



M. 





vcmm ^- hm 



Ah, Sir Lancelot, thou wert head of all Christian knights; and now, I dare 
say thou, Sir Lancelot, there thou liest, that thou wert never matched of earthly 
knight's hand; and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bore shield . . . 
. . . and thou wert the kindliest man that ever strake with sword, and thou 
wert the goodliest person that ever came among the press of knights; and 
t'lou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies; 
and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in rest. 
Tie Mart iV Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory. 





N the Old Dominion, in the County of Westmore- 
land, rendered illustrious as the birth-place of 
George Washington, Robert E. Lee was bom. It 
was the happy fortune of young Lee to be nursed on the 
breast of gentle manners, and to breathe from infancy the 
pure air of virtue and culture. He was surrounded by 
every advantage that wealth, position and family lineage 
could give. His mother was descended from a distinguished 
Virginia family. His father was the son of a patriot of the 
Revolution, an eminent soldier, and the historian of the 
struggle for independence; in the South the Governor of 
his Commonwealth; the life-long personal and political 
friend of Washington, and the orator selected by the Con- 
gress of the United States to pronounce his eulog}'. 

An old and settled society existed in Virginia, rich in the 
tradition of centuries, characterized bv simplicit}' of manners, 
genial courtesy and hospitality, purity and refinement of 
domestic life, honor, dignity and chivalry among her public 
men, and a general and unaffected respect for religion. 
Reared in this social atmosphere, the plastic years of this 
favored son were deeply influenced by its tastes and senti- 
ments. 



508 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Robert Lee sprang from a family ancient and illustrious in 
the use of arms. The law of heredity asserted itself 
in him. lie early manifested the martial tendenc}- and 
heraldic spirit that had marked his ancestral line since the 
days of the Norman conqueror. The limits of transmitted 
tendencies have not yet been announced by the philosophers. 
It comes very near being an accepted conclusion in America 
that family traits are not inherited by the second genera- 
tion. The distinctive characteristics which give one man 
prominence seem to exhaust all their ^"itality in his career, 
and he is incapable of perpetuating them in his posterity. It 
is a rare thing to hnd a father who was a successful mer- 
chant succeeded b}- a son who is also successful. It is 
seldom that the son in the law office is as good a law3'er as 
the father. The fathers who have accumulated millions of 
dollars, in most instances leave a family of children, who not 
only are unable to add to their wealth but are not even able 
to hold what was given to them. There is little danger of 
a hereditary aristocracy of brains or wealth. It took the 
feudal tenure system to create such a caste in the old world. 
The Israelites have maintained their general traits of charac- 
ter under all the adversities attendant upon a national 
dispersion lasting for more than eighteen centuries. Families 
also assert their "general qualities" at all times, but the 
phenomenal gifts which create the man a genius, are indi- 
vidual, and ordinarily the steady on-goings of nature refuse 
to recognize these qualities as belonging to the material in 
the make-up of that family line. 

There have been some notable exceptions to this rule. 
The elder Adams had a worthy successor in his son, John 
Quincy; and the elements of statesmanship and eloquence 
are to be found in the third generation that inhabit Massa- 



ROBERT E. LEE. 509 

chusetts at this time. Commodore Vanderbilt found, 
contrary to his own expectations, all his own financial genius 
developed in his son, William II., who, in turn, finds 
his sons, the third generation, gifted with that singular 
financiering capacit}' which has amassed two hundred 
millions of dollars within fifty years. The Astor famil}', 
since its founder, a hundred years ago, laid the foundation 
of its wealth in the fur trade, has never known a spendthrift 
nor an idler. Such instances are rare. They furnish no 
sufficient ground for a theory that will encourage a youth to 
examine the career of his ancestors to learn the material of 
which he is made. 

No phenomenal exhibition of power affords a clue to either 
hope or fear for the qualities in one's self To follow the 
burden of testimony, as the lawyers do, would be to till 
every breast with apprehension, for where there has been an 
unusual exhibition of powers the cases are vastly in the 
majority where the descendants have gone as far below 
mediocrity as the ancestor was notable in his attainments. 
Bonaparte, who could live in the saddle twenty hours out of 
the twenty-four and know no fatigue, who wrapped his 
cloak about him and lay down on the field of Austerlitz on 
the frozen ground and was fast asleep in five minutes, who 
was a greater strategist than the accepted military tacticians 
of the world, and contrary to all their known rules of warfare, 
and, in spite of them, crushed the five great 'coalitions of 
Austria with, the other powers, left a son who could not 
comprehend the simplest military movements, who spent 
half his time in bed, who could not sleep for nervous excite- 
ment, and who died from exhaustion at the age of twenty- 
one. The world never heard of Palissy's son. Calhoun, 



510 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Jefferson and Benton had no sons able to fill their father's 
sphere. 

A thousand men in the past fifty years have died worth a 
half million dollars, and their children are dying now as 
paupers. From Louis XIV to Hugo, no French statesman 
has left a copy worthy of his sire. Who ever heard of the 
sons of Plato, of Socrates, or Homer, of the sons of the Duke 
of Marlborough, of Lord Palmerston, or Stephen A. Doug- 
las.'' Hannibal, Caesar and Washington were childless. 
The tongue of Blaine's son has lost its father's cunning. 
The son of Henr}' Clay breeds horses in Kentucky, and 
Lord Beaconsfield's titles and estate descended to a nephew. 
Robert E. Lee was born of a family in which the military 
element was not phenomenal. But they possessed a military 
character; it was a part of the family's natural material. 
The plant that had grown so steadily in the Lee soil for ten 
centuries, in this latter son grew by the rootlets of so many 
generations to a wonderful perfection. Lancelot Lee, qi 
Louder, accompanied William the Conqueror to England. 
After Harold's golden head and brave standard had sunk 
forever at Hastings, Lancelot was rewarded for his services 
by an estate in Essex. From that memorable date the name 
of Lee occurs continually in English annals, and always in 
honorable military connection. Lionel Lee fought at Coeur 
de Leon's side in Palestine, and who for his gallantry at 
Acre, and iii other battles, was knighted, and civic and 
militar}' honors were showered upon him. 

Then comes Richard Lee, the period of the unfortunate 
Surrey and his ally during the " woeful expedition " across 
the Tweed, into Scotland. About the same time two other 
Lees so distinguished themselves as to have their banners 
suspended in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with the Lee 





fflEM. 



a.KE 



ROBERT E. LEE 5H 

coat of arms emblazoned thereon. Coming down to the 
times of the first Charles, we find the Lees in Shropshire, 
all stanch cavaliers. Then it was that the accomplished 
Richard Lee determined to remove to the new world. " He 
was," says Bishop Meade, " a man of good stature, comely 
visage, enterprising genius, sound head, vigorous spirit and 
most generous nature. His son, Henry, married in the 
colonies, whose son also married and became the father of 
the celebrated cavalry leader of the Revolution, popularly 
known as " Light Horse Harry." Robert E. Lee was the 
son of this dashing revolutionary soldier, and "before 
Robert's renown " the fame of the lamil}- line grows dim, 
comparativel}', and feeble. When Robert was four years 
of age, his father removed to Alexandria, the better to edu- 
cate his children. Colonel Lee was possessed of a fine estate, 
which enabled him to gratify his high purposes concerning 
his children. Ha\ing received all the educational advan- 
tages aflbrded within the colonies, he was determined that 
his children should keep pace with the rapidly developing 
country, and early made arrangements that his possible 
death should not interfere with their college privileges. 
Education is so universal in the cities that its possession is 
not considered; it is only its absence that is commented on. 
In the country districts the lack of an education is not 
regarded, but its possession is viewed with great regard. In 
the early days of the government an educated man was 
looked upon with great favor. It clothed him with the 
mantle of aristocracy. The people had not 3'et got far 
enough away from England to lose sight of castes and orders. 
An aristocracy of education is the only aristocracy Amer- 
ica ever needs. Not that education which is furnished only 
by the college curriculum, but the education which informs 



512 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTBT. 

and develops the whole man, which is obtained by the dili- 
gent and painstaking student out of the school, as well as in 
it, that education which is a storehouse of knowledge of the 
world, and a mastery of all those systems which touch along 
the path of one's life calling. Not only the education of 
Edward Everett, and Charles Sumner, and Justice Story, but 
that of Clay, Lincoln and Douglas. The childhood of Rob- 
ert was remarkable for modesty and thoughtful ness of char- 
acter, and for the performance of ever}' duty which devohed 
upon him. When eleven years of age, his father died. From 
his childhood he had been prepared for this event. Holding 
. his father in a deep and reverent love, and always under the 
shadow of his expected death, had solemnized and rendered 
more grave his already serious and religious nature. As 
Lord Macaulay when an urchin, was given to statel}' phrases 
of speech that would astonish a Scotch professor, so Lee, 
when a lad, exhibited such probity and dignified bearing, and 
was so profound in his ways, he was a source of wonder and 
amusement to the family visitors. His mother was a great 
invalid; with the elder children away at school, Robert 
became the house keeper, carried the keys, attended to the 
marketing, managed all of the out-door business, and took 
care of his mother's horses. At the hour when other school- 
boys went to play, he hurried home to order his mother's 
drive, and would there be seen half carrying her, and arrang- 
ins; her cushions with all the gentleness of an experienced 
nurse. He always made a labored effort to amuse his mother 
on these drives, assuring her, with the gravit}' of an old man, 
that unless she was cheerful the drive would not benefit her. 
When he left her to go to West Point, his mother said, '' How 
can I live without Robert? He is both son and daughter to 
me." 



ROBERT E. LEE. 513 

Years after, when he came home from West Point, he 
found one of the chief actors of his childhood's drama — his 
mother's old coachman, " Nat," ill, and threatened with con- 
sumption. He immediately took him to the milder climate 
of Georgia, nursed him with the tenderness of a son. and 
secured him the best medical advice. But the spring saw 
the faithful old servant laid in the grave by the hands of his 
kind young master. 

He did not often indulge in the sports of youth. He was 
out among the students at intermission, but he seldom 
engaged in the games which occupy those hours. He enjoyed 
hunting, and for this, oftener than any other cause, would 
leave his charges at home, and spend a day in the woods. 
With his gun and dog he would tramp for miles over the 
country, and but few of the old marksmen brought home 
more game at night. At that day Virginia abounded in 
game, and at the proper season each week furnished a troop 
of deer hunters from his neighborhood, but their trip was usu- 
ally turned into a carousal where liquor and profanity flowed 
freely, and Robert after one hunt refused to join their com- 
panies longer. His teacher, during the first years of school 
life at Alexandria, was W. B. Lear}', an Irish gentleman. 
A warm friendship sprang up between teacher and pupil, 
which continued to the close of their lives. At this school he 
acquired a knowledge of the classics and a fondness for them,' 
■which he always retained. 

De Quincey astounded his teachers at sixteen with his pro- 
found knowledge of the classics, one professor declaring he 
could address an Athenian mob. Coleridge had a like apt- 
ness, and while the life he pursued afforded little opportunity 
for the use of their knowledge, \Q.t both these scholars main- 
tained their stud}' to the last for mere love of it. When it 



514 THE GEXIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

was decided that Robert should go to West Point, it became 
necessary to make him more proficient in mathematics. He 
was accordingly sent to school to pursue mathematics alone, 
but it was a great task for him to turn his attention to that 
which it seemed he had no natural taste for. 

In time he developed as great a liking for mathematics as 
he had had for the classics. A student's mind often pre- 
sents a tendency towards all the callings, and which ever one 
it first seizes upon, will develop such a proficiency in it, that 
they are judged unsuited for any other line of work. It fre- 
quently occurs that, tried in another direction the powers 
respond as generously to its demands. There are few 
DeVincis, however, and if a broad and active current is 
found in the nature, to carry . on the commerce of any par- 
ticular line of business, it is safe to let it alone. 

Entering West Point at the age of eighteen, he rapidly 
rose to a position of prominence in his class, although he 
refused to join in any of the sports of a questionable char- 
acter, for which that military academy is so famous. He 
won and retained the esteem of the cadets and officers, and 
at the end of lour }-cars graduated without having received 
a demerit in his entire course, and second in an unusually 
brilliant class. The esteem of companions is not always 
won by yielding to their wishes and joining in their works. 
A spirit of independence and self-reliance seldom fails of 
recognition in such cases. To go witlk the crowd because 
one wants to do so is to make oneself part of the company, 
but to go with them because of the opposition a refusal 
would create is to fawn before an opposition. This ne\-er 
brings respect, and is unable to make companionship. Young 
men are furnished with the intentions of manhood that de- 
cides whether companions are " boon " or whether they are 



ROBERT E. LEE. 515 

SO from other motives; and nowhere is the true spirit and 
pkick of life so quickly recognized as among young men. 
The dignity of character maintained b}' the one when he 
first begins to walk on the pa'ths of man's estate is an index 
to the future life. A course that is consistent and manly, and 
refuses to be challenged, will obtain respect, although it ma}^ 
not be popular for the moment. The world likes individ- 
uality; it detests a sycophant. The students laughed at 
Calhoun the first year he was at college, but the following 
year they admired him. At first the cadets thought young 
Lee sentimental and prudish. They soon learned he was 
neither. They saw in the end that he refused to join them 
because he found no pleasure in their sports, but that he was 
an admirable companion and a good student. Ralph Waldo 
Emerson was almost without a companion at school; his 
nature was so difterent from those about him that he could 
find no pleasure where there was no affinity, yet every boy 
in college was his friend. Carlyle was the same kind of a 
recluse; because of his peculiar temperament, with the few- 
est associates, he was the most universally respected of 
any student at the universit}'. There are men who go 
through life without a confidant, and are seldom e\-er known 
to associate with others, who have more friends and admir- 
ers than any man in their community. 

Lee graduated second in his class. This distinction was 
not gained without a severe struggle. He stands forth at 
the end of his school career the unusual spe'ctacle of a young 
man to whom high family connections and great wealth had 
not proven a serious detriment. It seeins to be easier to 
rise in the world without advantageous surroundings than 
with them. A competency in wealth and a secured social 
position burden resolution and weight the energies. It is the 



51() THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

widow's son, the penniless lad, whose deft strokes carve him 
a place in the niche among the great. Adverse circum- 
stances have discovered greatness in men, as in Nelson, 
that a shower of fortune would have hid forever. Alexan- 
der H. Stephens — the news of whose death is filling the 
land as these lines are being penned — toiling on the adverse 
side of life, afibrds a strange contrast to Lee. That their 
lives should till so large a space in their countr3-'s histor\-, 
and be so closely identified in their labors in behalf of the 
South, living to a ripe old age, respected by the great com- 
monwealth of the land, and their earh' years ha\e been at so 
strange a variance is a coincidence, and an additional 
illustration of the triumphs of a determined purpose over 
outrageous fate, or the letharg}/ of position and plenty. The 
career of Mr. Stephens has been the most remarkable of any 
man in this country' ; it is an interesting and distinguished 
one. Perhaps no public man in the country ever surmounted 
greater difficulties, and in the end was crowned with such 
success. His family was not of high social origin: he worked 
on a plantation and had meager schooling. His parents left 
him a penniless lad, and charity finally opened the way for 
him to attend the university, but when he graduated, he 
taught school until he had earned enough to repay the 
money he had borrowed. Many great men have arri\ed at 
eminence through poverty, but few have had disease added. 
He was a sickly boy, morbidly sensitive, and of melancholy 
disposition, and was all through life racked with painful dis- 
ease. He was admitted to the bar when only twenty-two 
years of age, and he weighed eighty-five pounds. He was 
offered a favorable partnership, but his love for home 
anchored him to the spot of his boyhood. He opened his 
office and kept a scrupulous account of his expenses — which 



ROBERT E. LEE. 517 

always reveals to one points wherein they can be econom- 
ical — and the first year lived on six dollars a month ; that 
year he did four hundred dollars worth of business. When 
he first started in the practice of law at Crawfordville, he 
passed every morning a shoe factory, and as he was walking 
by, one of three negroes asked, " Who is that little fellow that 
walks by here so fast of mornings?" "Why, man, that's a 
lawyer." The third negro shouted aloud with a genuine 
negro guffaw: "A lawyer! that's good!" In less than six 
months Stephens saved that negro, who had mirrored popu- 
lar opinion of the struggling bo}', from the penitentiary, by 
picking a flaw in the indictment. 

There were no railroads in those da3s in Georgia, and 
wanting to go to Washington Court House and attend the 
session of court in that county, in a style befitting his pro- 
fession, he found himself without the means to hire a 
conveyance, and being too proud to borrow, he walked ten 
miles to his uncle's, where he obtained the loan of a horse. 
His change of clothing consisted, in part, of a pair of thin 
white cotton pants of cheap material, and just before he 
entered the town he halted his horse under a tree, and, 
changing his clothes, entered town in style. 

The second year in the practice he was prostrated by 
sickness. In the following year he was again confined to 
his bed by sickness for months, and never after knew a well 
day. 

For several years he was a member of the Georgia 
Legislature, where he won a fame that extended all over 
the State, as a logical and shrewd debater and orator of 
great power. He was eventually sent to Congress, where 
his addresses alwaj's commanded the closest attention. His 
points were made rapidly and apparently without efibrt. 



618 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

The midnight oil never flashed forth its sickl}' glare in his 
eloquent passages. He gradually unfolded his subject like 
the leaves of a book. He was feared as an antagonist and 
sought for as an ally in debate. He was compared to Ran- 
dolph, of Roanoke. Both were morbidly sensitive. Both 
were fearless in debate and action. Randolph fought duels; 
Stephens challenged Herschel V. Johnson and General B. H. 
Hill, yet both refused to fight him. Both were powerful in 
Congress; both diseased. Yet Randolph was C3'nical and 
misanthropic, all gall and wormwood, embittered perhaps 
by suffering and disease. Yet Stephens conquered his pains, 
and was as modest as a school girl and as amiable and 
genial as the most bountifull}' blessed person could be. He 
had wished to die in the harness. Elected Governor of 
Georgia, at the age of se\"enty-one, with a life that had been 
bandaged in disease, he had gloriously triumphed and died 
with the harness on. 

Lee's early 3'ears were blessed with perfect health, his 
social position was of the best, and his lamil}^ was possessed 
of an ample fortune. He neither knew a pain nor a strug- 

That these two youths, whose early lives were so dis- 
similar, should afterwards meet in the arena of national 
afTairs, each the head of a great interest, exhibits the 
possibilities in American institutions, and the toil of their 
lives shows the feebleness of famil}', and the lightness of 
adversity, to make or mar a life. If the body contain the 
purpose of determined effort the triumph will come. If it is 
not contained hinderance and help are alike futile; the life is 
a failure. 

When a boy Robert Lee was accustomed to visit Arling- 
ton, the estate of George Washington Parke Custis, (the 



ROLSERT E. LEE. 519 

adopted son of the Father of his Country) and there had as 
his playmate Mary Randolph Custis. Their childish friend- 
ship, when mature jears had come, ripened into love, and 
on June 30th, 1831, he led her to the altar of marriage. 
Arlington passed into the possession of the young lieuten- 
ant's wife, and henceforth became their home. Little time 
could be spared from the active duties of his soldier life, but 
every day a furlough could be granted he spent at home. 
The deep and earnest nature of Lee was well fitted to a 
home life. He adored his wife and children. The letters 
he wrote them when away at his post of duty breathed the 
love of a fond and devoted heart. 

The sobriety of his life was nev^er known to yield to a 
passion. Under the most vexatious trials, when his officers 
and men were turbulent with anger, he was as serene and 
unruffled as a sleeping infant. Cromwell can not be com- 
pared to him in this regard, for the Protector's " awful 
serenity " had a rigidness about it that aroused passion in 
others. Lee's placidity moved every one to his state of 
mind. The center of Lincoln's character was morality. 
The center of Lee's was religion. The moral moved 
through and colored everything with which Lincoln had to 
do. The religious fervency of Lee was visible in every- 
thing he did. Lincoln was not a church member, and was 
often pronounced a free thinker. Lee was a regular com- 
municant at church, and his letters, addresses and private 
conversations abounded in reverent allusions to Almighty 
God, and the complete surrender of his life to the Divine 
guidance. 

The great military chieftains, as a rule, have not been 
professors of religion. A minority have been enrolled as 
church members, but a great captain who was a devout 



520 TUB GENIUS OF IXDUsTRY. 

Christian, is seldom found in military annals. INIahomet was 
a religious enthusiast, and fired his soldiers with all his holy 
frenzy. The tanatieal zeal whieh glowed in their breasts 
led his followers to attacks, and, in the terrific abandon of 
their onslaughts, to victories that the tactics of war could 
never ha\e gained. A religious fervor, transferred by the 
leader to his troops, becomes a strength that makes an army 
well nigh invincible. The crusades would have been noth- 
ing without religious passion. Peter the Hermit set the 
flame of his quenchless spirit in the mind of ever^' crusader, 
and for two hundred j^ears it was handed down to successive 
generations, and its mighty fury did not die until twenty 
millions of the flower of Europe had by it been led to their 
death. The aroused energies of the Cromwellian patriots, 
through whose \eins flowed love to God, and duty to the 
country by the church, restored peace to their land. 

Religion is the largest energy that can fill a life. No 
thought can be conceived of that has been of so much bene- 
fit to the world, as the one that man is responsible to an 
Eternal IVIaster. The work of all the artists, the teaching- 
of all the scholars, the eloquence of all the orators, has not 
done the world so much good as this one conception. The 
majority of mankind are not privileged to pass the college 
halls, but few men can ever escape the idea that the}^ came 
from the hands of a just judge, and to Him they must return 
again. 

When cities have been paralyzed by luxury and vicious- 
ness; when the thrones of royalty, the centers of govern- 
ment, have been i-otten with crime, and drunken with 
revelry, until the scepter of control was wasted, and the 
State was dissoh'ing in anarchy, the people, who were back 
from the glare of the Court, students of their Bibles and 



ROBERT E. LEE. 521 

steadfast in their divine faith, have moved up to the foun- 
tains of corrupted government, and filled them with the fresh 
blood' of a pure life. Their religious zeal redeemed the 
nation ; thus it was that the sturdy churchmen saved Eng- 
land, and thus it was that the peasantry reclaimed France. 
On the evening of Oct. 13, 1066, the Normans* and the 
Anglo-Saxons encamped near Hastings. The Saxons 
turned to their tents at their usual hour, but the Normans 
• were ordered to their quarters earl}' for the special ser\'ice 
that would be held on the morrow. At an early hour they 
were astir, and the army of 60,000 men attended divine 
worship before breakfast. William demanded that the 
soldiers as one man commit the issue of the contest to their 
God. By nine o'clock the battle was joined. When dusk 
came the Saxons were in flight and the Norman was con- 
queror. Their patriotism failed when Harold fell pierced 
by an arrow, but the Norman faith was unshaken to the 
last, although 15,000 of their men went down. " The subju- 
gation of a nation by a nation," said Macaulay, speaking of 
the consequences of the battle, " has seldom, even in Asia, 
been more complete." The religious confidence with which 
Stonewall Jackson always went into battle gave an assur- 
ance to his men that no other conviction on the part of their 
great leader could have given them. The feeling of right, 
and that the unseen power of the air is marshaled on their 
side, gives courage to fear and makes weak battalions strong. 
The man who enters any contest sustained by an unfalter- 
ing trust in his God is stronger than he would be under an}- 
other circumstances. His ideas may not be clearly defined 
as to how assistance will be rendered him. Yet he has the 
faith that " all things will work together for good to them 
that serve Him." Souls that have held this faith have 



622 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

dared perilous undertakings, and wrought achievements, that 
seemed higher than human hands. The sublime faith of 
Joan of Arc tired the French soldiery with a heroism that 
their militar}- leaders were unable to give them. The child- 
like and trusting confidence of Lee in the divine care was 
the mark of his life. His whole career moved under the 
guidance of a reverent faith. He was not a religious enthu- 
siast, not a canting professor. His character was pure, and 
his nature was profoundly religious. No one e\'er rendered' 
him a service, however humble, that was not instantl}' and 
gratefully acknowledged, however lowly the person might 
be. His doctrine and his life give lucid proof that he was 
honest in Whatever cause he espoused. 

The marriage of Lee to INIiss Custis proved a happy 
union. She was a woman worth}' to grace the home and 
cheer the eventful life of one of the foremost men of his day. 
The early years of their married life was crowned with all the 
felicity of a loving home. In after years Mrs. Lee was ren- 
dered by sickness incapable of walking, and was never free 
from pain, but in the midst of her sufferings she seemed con- 
tented and happy. Domestic in her tastes and habits and of 
unconquerable industry, she was constantly engaged in some 
order of work, and was a liberal contributor to any charity 
that presented itself Noted for her sound judgment — thor- 
oughly educated and accomplished — well read in general lit- 
erature — a fine conversationalist and a genial entertainer, she 
was a Virginia matron of the old school, and worthy to link 
together the illustrious families of Washington and Lee. On 
his graduation at West Point, Lee was appointed Brevet- 
Second Lieutenant. Six years afterward he was made First 
Lieutenant, and two 3'ears later was created Captain of Engi- 
neers. When the Mexican war broke out, he was assigned 



ROBERT E. LEE. 523 

to the central army in iNIexico as Chief Engineer. General 
Scott, quick to detect military genius, at an earl}- da}- selected 
him to be one of his personal stall". Concerning his services 
at Vera Cruz, General Scott says, " I am compelled to make 
special mention of Captain R. E. Lee, Engineer. This 
officer greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Vera 
Cruz." Again at Cerro Gordo, his general makes special 
mention of his sagacity in planting batteries, and in con- 
ducting columns to their stations, under the heavy fire of 
the enemy. After this battle he was brevetted a Major. 
Later he was made Lieutenant-Colonel for gallant and mer- 
itorious conduct. For his services at Chapultepec, he was 
made, in 1852, Superintendent of the West Point Academy. 
General Scott conceived a warm personal friendship for the 
young engineer, and a high admiration for his military skill. 
The Commander-in-Chief sent hardly a single dispatch to 
Washington City in which his name was not honorably men- 
tioned. Years after, when alluding to Johnston's promotion 
ahead of Lee, he said, " Lee is the greatest military genius 
in America." At another time, he said, " I tell you that if 
I were on my death-bed to-morrow, and the President of the 
United States should tell me that a great battle was to be 
fought for the liberty or slavery of the country, and asked 
my judgment as to the ability of a commander, I would say 
with my dying breath, let it be Robert E. Lee." 

When John Brown made his raid on the United States 
armory at Harper's Ferry, which was the prelude to the 
great struggle so soon to open upon the country. Colonel 
Lee was ordered to arrest the insurgents and put down the 
rebellion. He accordingly moved with his men to the field 
of mimic rebellion; after a futile parley, and a refusal of sur- 
render he opened fire on the engine house, where the insur- 



524 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

gents had barricaded themselves, and after the kiUing of sev- 
eral of the inmates and the wounding of Browrn, the building 
was assaulted and captured, and the prisoners were delivered 
to the government for trial. In the early part of 1 86 1, Colonel 
Lee rejoined his regiment in Texas. The political excite- 
ment attending the Presidential election of i860 was unpre- 
cedented in national history. Contrar}^ to the rules of heated 
political campaigns, the election of Mr. Lincoln was suc- 
ceeded by greater unrest in the public mind than had been 
manifested previously. The gravest apprehensions were 
realized in the opening of 1861, when the excitement in the 
South culminated in the withdrawal of several of the Southern 
States from the Union. They formed a confederacy com- 
posed exclusively of slave-holding states, under the title of 
the "Confederate States of America." Closely interwoven 
in the structure of the Union was a fatal weakness in the 
principles of "States rights." The Fathers, in the funda- 
mental articles of government, had failed to clearly and 
undisputably declare that, these States were not bound into 
the " Union " by a mere compact. The delicacy of the con- 
flicting interests, vested at that supreme moment, made it a 
feat of statesmanship to confederate these colonies under one 
constitution. They were unable to declare that these States 
were States only for the convenience of local government, 
and that they in realit}' composed a " unity," and were a 
Nation. They bound the States together and rested there, 
reserving for a later age the definite interpretation of the 
character of their union. The commonwealth of Virginia 
had clung to the Union, but seeing the others go, she also 
passed the ordinance of secession and united her destin}- with 
that of her Southern sisters. 

Colonel Lee, with his regiment in Texas, anxiously 



ROBERT E. LEE. 525 

watched the course of his State, hoping peace would be 
preserved and she would remain in the Union. When he 
saw his hope was vain, he was placed where he must decide 
between the general government and his State. He had 
been reared in a slave State. The principles of the great 
statesmen of the South were his principles. He was no 
Southern lire-eater, and was a stranger to sectional preju- 
dice. He believed that the first duty of a patriot was to 
his State. His conviction of government was " State 
rights." Every feeling of selfishness and ambition bid him 
remain with the Union army. For twenty-ti\-e years he 
had served with credit and distinction in that army. In the 
opinion of the army he held the second position in point of 
merit, and was regarded as the most fitting successor to the 
veteran Lieutenant-General, to whom he was bound by the 
strongest ties of love and esteem. Honor and military dis- 
tinction awaited hirp. General Scott implored him to 
remain, and the President of the United States offered him 
the command of the Union armies. If he went with his 
State he would have trials, suffering ; he would descend from 
wealth to poverty, and be a proclaimed traitor. It was a 
terrible struggle. Had his convictions bisen less of duty to 
his State ambition would have triumphed. Mrs. Lee said, 
in December, 1861, " My husband has wept tears of blood 
over this terrible war, but he must share the destiny of his 
State." 

The action of Virginia put an end to his struggles r>nd 
left him no alternative. AVhen Secretary Blair offered him 
the command of the Union army, he said, " Mr. Blair, I 
look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned four millions of 
slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; 
but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native 



526 - THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

State? " To his sister, tlie wife of a Union officer, he 
wrote: "* * * The whole South is in a state of revolu- 
tion, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been 
drawn; and though I recognize no necessity for this state of 
things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for 
redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own per- 
son I had to meet the question whether I should take part 
against my native State. With all my devotion to the 
Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American 
citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise 
my hand against my relations, my children, my home. I 
have, therefore, resigned my commission in the army, and 
save in defense of my native .State, with the sincere hope 
that my poor ser\ices may never be needed, I hope I may 
never be called upon to draw my sword." 

Colonel Lee's resignation was accepted on the 20th of 
April, and he at once repaired to Richmond, leaving behind 
him his splendid home, which was to be his no longer, and 
which he should never see again. Three da3's later the 
Governor of Virginia conferred upon him the rank of Major 
General of the forces of that State. After the establishment 
of the Confederacy, with its Congress at Richmond, Presi- 
dent Davis appointed him a General in the Confederate 
arm}', Cooper and Sydney Johnston outranking him. Being 
ranked thus he bore no active part in the first operations 
of the war. 

In June, 1862, General Johnston was disabled in the 
battle of Seven Pines, and General Lee was assigned to the 
vacant command. He found the Confederate capital 
beleaguered by an army of one hundred thousand men, 
while his own force was little more than half that number. 
He conceived the idea of relieving the beseiged cit}' by 



ROBERT E. LEE. 527 

one of those bold strategic movements which mark the 
mihtar}' chieftain from the mere professor of arms. He 
directed General Jackson tlirough a Hne of rapid movements 
in the valley, which prevented forty thousand men, under 
McDowell, from uniting with the beseiging arm}'. A part 
of Fremont's force was hurried on to unite with McDowell 
in crushing Jackson. It was evident the latter could not 
long stand against the arm}' that was massing before him; 
yet, to detach enough battalions from the defenders of 
Richmond to save Jackson would so weaken that point that 
the Capital would fall. Lee therefore decided that Jackson 
must be lifted out of the enemy's clutches in the valley and 
unite with him, and drive the beseiging army from before 
Richmond. Three brigades were accordingly hurled into 
the valley, apparently to assist Jackson, whose feints had 
thus far kept McDowell and Fremont from uniting. He 
gave battle to each force in succession, and had driven them 
back ; and under apprehension that reinforced he was moving 
on to Washington, they moved down the valley in order to 
cover that city. Leaving all of his cavalry to watch the 
enemy and mask his own movements, Jackson hurried 
toward the endangered Capital. 

Less than four weeks after Lee had assumed command of 
the army his attacking columns swung around McClellan's 
right flank and fell like an avalanche on the besieging army. 
Next day Jackson was up, and then ensued the succession 
of brilliant engagements which produced McClellan's famous 
" change of base," and sent his shattered army to Harrison's 
Landing, under cover of the gunboats on the James. 

McClellan had under his command on the Potomac, and 
within reach of Richmond, one hundred and ninety-three 
thousand men. Lee's combined forces not did reach ninety 



528 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

thousand men. The idea of relieving Richmond by an 
attack on McClellan's flank and rear was a masterly concep- 
tion; but its boldness appears when, sweeping around the 
enemy's flank, Lee left little over twenty-five thousand men 
between the city and the besieging army. It was the per- 
fection of profound and daring strategy. Had McClellan 
advanced to the assault of the city, through the open plains 
around it, his destruction would have been insured. As it 
was, his only chance for escape was in a retreat through the 
swamps and forests, which concealed and sheltered his 
columns on their flight. Had the plans of Lee been faith- 
fully and rigidl}' carried out b}' his subordinates, McClellan's 
army would have been annihilated. The campaign from 
Richmond to Fredericksburg manifested the generosity of 
his nature, in the arrangements for his own personal com- 
fort. Wellington always moved before his soldiers with a 
prince like exclusiveness, and his headquarters were as regal 
and unapproachable as the queen's at Windsor Castle. So 
Marlborough, in the face of the most exhausting hardships, 
and painful absence of comforts toV his men, compelled the 
trains to bring up the loads of furniture and provisions for 
his quarters. No French general has ever been known to 
recognize the comfortless condition of his army, or blush to 
establish himself in regal luxury in the midst of their tat- 
tered tents and scant}' stores. General Lee was touched by 
every trial of his soldiers, and felt every pang of their hun- 
ger. Never before knowing the lack of perfect comfort, 
he consigned himself to the soldier's fare and bed, and could 
not be persuaded in that long campaign to quit his quarters 
in the field. His staff" caught his spirit, and slept under tent- 
flies, that the entire army might be one in privations. An 
English nobleman, visiting the winter quarters, was struck 



ROBERT E. LEE. 529 

with the cliaracter of the headquarters of the General, in 
comparison with the pomp and circumstance of war which 
surrounded the encamped armies on European fields. Lee's 
headquarters consisted of seven pole tents, pitched with their 
backs to the fence, upon a piece of ground so rocky it was 
unpleasant to ride over it, its only recommendation being a 
stream of good, cold water which flowed close by the Gen- 
eral's tent. The couriers were not provided with tents, and 
slept in some wagons that stood near. No guards or sen- 
tries were to be seen in the vicinit}"; no crowd of aids-de- 
camp loitering about, endeavoring to save their generals 
from receiving those who have no particular business. A 
large farm house stood near b}', which, with any other 
army, would have been the General's residence. " Every 
one, however, who approaches him does so with respect. 
There is no bowing and flourishing of forage caps as in the 
presence of European generals. All honor him, and place 
implicit faith in his courage and ability, but this life reveals 
the man; to accepted abilities it adds intimate affections 
which exist between the sons and the father." Old General 
Scott was correct in saying that when Lee joined the South- 
ern cause it was worth as much as the accession of twenty 
thousand men to the " rebels." 

The Christianity of Lee's nature placed him above jeal- 
ous}'. The intrigues of commanders to thwart any accom- 
plishment on the part of other commanders is as old as 
war. Armies have as often been o\-erthrown b}' a quiet 
refusal to co-operate with some brilliant movement of a 
brother officer as by the superior power of the enemy. 
Stonewall Jackson was a general of whom Lee would have 
been fearful of his popularity if of any man in the army. 
More than once had he thrown himself into the ranks of his 



530 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

troops, when defeat seemed certain, and by the enthusiasm 
of his presence had turned the tide of defeat into victory. 
When he fell at Chancellorsville his men were panic-stricken 
and wept like children; then their grief was turned to fury 
and they fought like demons. When a messenger at four 
o'clock in the morning reached headquarters with the tid- 
ings of Jackson's wounds, he found Lee on a bed of straw. 
He sprang up and read the message and exclaimed, " God 
be praised, he is still alive." Then he added, "Any victory 
is a dear one which deprives us of the service of Jackson, 
even for a short time." The officer remarked that he 
believed it was General Jackson's intention to have pressed 
the enemy on the coming day, had he been spared. General 
Lee said quietly, " These people shall be pressed to-day." 
Dressing, he partook of his simple meal of ham and crack- 
ers, and prepared to set out for the field. Later in the da}' 
he sent to General Jackson the following letter: 

"General: — I have just received your note, informing 
me that you were wounded. I cannot express ni}- regret at 
the occurence. Could I have directed events, I should have 
chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled 
in your stead. I congratulate you upon j-our victory, which 
is due to your skill and energ}-." 

The affectionate admiration with which the great com- 
mander of the South regarded Jackson was fully recipro- 
cated by the latter. He pronounced Lee a phenomenon, and 
that he was the only man whom he would follow blind- 
fold. Each was worthy of the gallant friendship of the 
other. Lee hurried to the front, taking personal direction 
of the army, and gave orders to storm the Federal works 
at Chancellorsville. The whole line advanced, and after a 
stubborn fight, captured the works. The Union forces ral- 



ROBERT E. LEE. 531 

lied and the Confederates were driven back. A second time 
the works were won and lost, and a third attempt met the 
same fate. The confederate infantry swept forward in their 
fourth charge, over the dead and dying, into the captured 
works, driving the Union forces furiously towards the river, 
and at ten o'clock Lee's flag of victory waved over Chan- 
cellorsville. In the whirl and smoke and carnage of four 
successive charges and three successive defeats, he had 
" pressed the enemy " and sealed with a signal triumph the 
plans of his wounded subordinate. Lee was developing 
himself to be a master in all the arts of war. He had won 
the attention of Scott, in Mexico, first by the perfection of 
his engineering skill. He then attracted that great tacti- 
cian's generous favor in the councils by the strategy of his 
movements of the troops and lines of attack in giving battle. 
Now, as commander-in-chief of an army, he planned 
campaigns, and operated distant divisions of his forces with 
an equal facilit)'. When Jackson falls and the desperate, 
close-handed fight of charges is required, he moves on to the 
field, takes direct control, and leads his battalions amid the 
roar of cannon and the death of thousands, to the ramparts 
of victory. The Corsican and Carthagenian are the only 
chieftains that are his equal in all the varied requirements of 
war. They alone are his peers in executing strategic move- 
ments in the face of the enemy and wresting victories from 
vastly superior forces. Rank has no necessary connection 
with the genuine qualities of manhood. They are free from 
riches and position; these qualities are present or absent in 
the man, and not in the place. Wealth, power and position 
are in some measure the accidents of time, but the metal of 
manhood may be held in the breast, covered by a " warmas," 
as well as in the one shielded by a velvet vest. 



532 THE GESIUS OF INDUSTMT. 

Pure sympathies ma}' be found in a warrior's breast as 
well as in the prayers of a priest. It was a dying chief who, 
learning his head was pillowed on a private soldier's blanket, 
ordered "his blanket be taken to him this night, forthwith." 
When the Adige had overflowed, and the bridge of Verona 
w^as carried awa}', except the central arch, on which stood a 
house, whose inhabitants supplicated help from the windows, 
while the foundations were visibl}' giving wa}', Count Spol- 
verini said, '' I will gi^•e a hundred French louis to any 
person, who will venture to deli\er these unfortunate 
people." A young peasant came from the crowd, seized a 
boat and pushed into the stream. He gained the pier, 
received the whole famil}' into the boat, and made for the 
shore, where he landed them in safet}'. " Here is your 
money," said the Count. " No," was the answer of the 
young man, " I do not sell my life; give the money to this 
poor family, who have need of it." A case is related b3'Mr. 
Smiles of a sudden storm at Downs, which, setting from the 
north-east, drove several ships from their anchors, and, it 
being low water, one of them struck the ground at a con- 
siderable distance from the shore, where the sea made a 
clean break over her. There was not a vestige of hope for 
the vessel, such was the fiuy of the winds and violence of 
the waves. There was nothing to tempt the boatmen on 
shore to risk their lives in saving either ship or crew, for not 
a farthing of salvage was to be looked for. But no sooner 
had the brig grounded, than Simon Pritchard, one of the 
many persons on the beach, threw off his coat and called 
out, " Who will come with me and try to save that crew.'' " 
Instantly twenty men sprang forward. Only seven could 
go, and running down a galley-punt into the surf, they 
leaped in and dashed through the breakers, amidst the cheers 



ROBERT E. LEE. 533 

of those on shore. How the boat lived in sucli a sea seemed 
a miracle; but in a few minutes, impelled by the strong 
arms of these gallant men, she flew on and reached the 
stranded ship, " catching her on top of a wave " and in less 
than a quarter of an hour from the time the boat left the 
shore, the six men who composed the crew of the collier 
were landed safe on Walmer Beach. 

There are some men who are bound to succeed in life. 
They ha\-e planted their feet on the rounds of the ladder, and 
they must mount or die. When a man has been faithful over 
a few things, the world, like the Great King, lifts him up, 
and makes him ruler of many things. When a young man 
starts into the law, and shows in his cases that he is indus- 
trious, and has some specific gifts for his calling, he must rise. 
When a young physician exhibits accurate judgment in his 
diagnosis of his patient's disease, and the skill to apply the 
remedy, he must rise. When a man begins to trade, to buy 
and sell, and shows that he has the knack of fixing values, he 
will begin to rise into wealth. When a young soldier, detailed 
to engineering, executes his duty well, and any new trust 
placed on him is successfully carried out, he will rise. It has 
often been said that some persons have a natural tendency 
to rise and others to fail. If you put two men down in the 
streets of Chicago with the same ability, and precisely simi- 
lar circumstances, one of them in a short time will pass into 
obscurity and distress, and the other w^ill become prosperous 
and famous. It is not because fortune smiles on one and be- 
trays the other. It is in nine cases out of ten the difference 
in the integrity of character and persistence of industry man- 
ifested by the two. In the long run, a vacillating or jealous 
character will fall, while the steadfastness of purpose and fair 
recognition of competitors, will rise. 



534 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRT. 

Lee had begun at the bottom round of the ladder. He had 
executed ever}" trust with singular tidelit}' and with marked 
ability; his promotion was an inevitable consequence. In his 
reports the honors of a movement or campaign were always 
divided, when they could be, and the lion's share given to his 
associates. He had the generosity of manly honor, and never 
deemed the rise of others as a reflection on himself A cap- 
tain of engineers in the Mexican war, the spring of 1864, in 
the war of the Rebellion saw him at the head of a great army, 
and with a military fame extensive as the two continents. 
His devotion to his calling was the ground-work of his suc- 
cess. Michael Angelo had no more married his art than 
Lee had wedded the art of war. He knew every fiber in 
its organism. He was capable of personally performing 
any part of its service, from loading a commissary wagon to 
planning a campaign. He had a practical knowledge of all 
its parts. The man who thus possesses a real knowledge of 
all the departments of an}- enterprise is panoplied for its con- 
tests, and only masterl}' odds will be able to overthrow him. 
A young man of large fortune once decided to become an 
engineer. The great engineering establishment which he con- 
sidered the best for his purposes refused to receive appren- 
tices. The would-be engineer was not to be thwarted. He 
sought employment in the }"ard as a common workman. He 
dressed and passed as a common workman, and was always 
among the first to be at his post when the call sounded lor 
the day's work. Through this means he worked himself up, 
until his skill attracted attention, and he was engaged in the 
higher departments. He finall}- left their house with the de- 
sired knowledge. 

Mr. Glynn, an English barrister, in an address to the mem- 
bers of the bar, dropped some suggestive thoughts applicable 



ROBERT E. LEE. 535 

to Other callings as well as to the law: "People may call 
an attorney an attorney, as we call a dog a dog, but there are 
as many kinds of the one animal as there are of the other. 
An old solicitor in Newcastle, in a debate at the meeting of 
the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, declared 
that if he found a clerk of his reading a novel he would dis- 
charge the culprit on the spot. Now can this plan of treat- 
ment be considered as judicious.^ An attorney who knows 
nothing but law is at a disadvantage with another who knows 
the world. Let us, by all means, get as much of history, 
biography, voyages and travels as we can; process of manu- 
facture, ingenious inventions, marvelous works of man — say, 
knowledge of places and things. 

Don't let us follow the example of Sir Arthur Plazlewood, 
a young Scotsman of old family, invented bj' Sir Walter 
Scott, who went to the bar, but finding, in an action by a 
tallow-chandler, that he was expected to defile his mouth 
with filthy terms of trade, threw up his brief and quit the 
profession in disgust. Both in potent laws and in many 
others you will find terms of trade, of manufacturers, or of 
seamanship, most useful knowledge. But of all useful 
knowledge, knowledge of men, of human nature — knowledge 
of the world, as it is called — is the most useful of all. 

General Lee possessed a character that won on the confi- 
dence of the people quite as readily as on the soldiers. He 
never made a mistake. His movements were as exact 
military science as Hannibal's, who has been accorded the 
distinction of the "Perfect General." When Lee was 
overpowered and repulsed, his very retreat seemed to 
be a voluntary change from an old base for a better 
position. In the hour of victory his grief over the dead and 



536 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

wounded exceeded his rejoicing in the triumph. He was a 
man tilled with all the better qualities of humanity. 

While study • and experience developed him as a scholar 
and military chieftain the}' also brought into more promi- 
nent view his unusual qualities of manhood. This latter 
formed the central pivot of his character, around which his 
splendid attainments revolved, and which added a lustre to 
his achie\-enients worn onl}- by true heroes. 

All that one does, takes on from his character, becomes 
a reflex of himself. The work and the man can .not be 
separated. Marlborough in his dashing exploits on the 
field, was the Marlborough of the drawing room in another 
arena. Suwarrow, when he visited the Prince, kicking the 
elegant furniture out of his room, and ordering the servant 
to bring in some straw that he could have a comfortable 
bed, was the same stern and tireless soldier from the frozen 
North. Frederick the Great, at Fontenoy, and aping liter- 
ature with Voltaire, was the same Frederick. Lee, on the 
field of battle, was to be recognized as the same Lee that 
acted as church vestryman and college professor. 

The world learns of the elements in a man on the same 
day they hear of his accomplishments, and are filled with 
confidence or apprehension accordingly. The citizens of the 
Confederacy knew General Lee; his determined sacrifice for 
his State gave them assurance that the State ought to be 
obeyed. And while fearing for the ultimate result, with a 
calm and religious devotion to duty, irrespective of the end, 
he drew his sword for the South, and held thousands to 
their allegiance and steadfast in their sacrifices for the cause. 

The complete o\ erthrow of Lee, at any time, would have 
been the ruin of the Confederate cause. The people were 



ROBERT E. LEE. 537 

sta3-ed in him, and as his fortunes fluctuated so their hopes 
rose and fell. 

Time records tifteen decisive battles, on which the 
destiny of empires hung, and whose issue changed the 
histor}- of the world. What a moment was that when at 
INIarathon, Medes and Persians, with their scimeters and 
lunar spears, broke before the Athenians, and were driven 
back into the marshes! Then Asia precipitated itself upon 
Europe, and the civilization of the West was for the 
moment trembling in the balance. 

Lee had accepted the gauge of battle on a side where it 
was not possible for one victory, or many, to be decisive of 
the contest. One great and crushing defeat of his forces, 
however, might have left him without an army, or the 
resource from which to create another. The North teemed 
with millions of men, and her reserve force in a conflict 
with eleven States was exhaustless. 

Great events frequently hang on trivial causes. Trifles 
light as air have often sealed the fate of nations. The future 
of Europe was in the legs of Blucher's soldiers; they 
brought his arm}' into the field of Waterloo in time and the 
peace of the continent was secured. The discovery of 
America is referred to by Humboldt as " a wonderful con- 
catenation of tri\-ial circumstances," which undeniably 
exercised an influence on the course of the world's destin}'. 
" These circumstances are," Washington Irving justly 
observed, " that if Columbus had resisted the counsel of 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and continued to steer westward, he 
would have entered the Gulf Stream and been borne to 
Florida, and from thence probably to Cape Hatteras and 
Virginia — a circumstance of incalculable importance, since 
it might have been the means of giving the United States of 



638 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

North America a Catholic Spanish population in the place 
of the Protestant English by which those regions were sub- 
sequently colonized." 

'' It seems to me like an inspiration," said Pinzon to the 
Admiral, " that my heart dictates to me that we ought to 
steer in a different direction." It was on the strength of 
this circumstance that, in the celebrated lawsuit which 
Pinzon carried on against the heirs of Columbus between 
1513 and 15 15, he maintained that the discovery of America 
was alone due to him. This inspiration Pinzon owed, as 
related b}' an old soldier at the same trial, to the flight of a 
flock of parrots, which he had observed in the evening fl\- 
ing toward the southwest, in order, as he might well have 
conjectured, to roost on trees on the land. Never has a 
flight of birds been attended with more important results." 
" It has always been a question among military writers how 
far the pause of Hannibal was compulsory — a question not 
likely to be solved unless Pompeii yields us further literar}- 
treasures. As far as one can decide, at such a distance of 
time and scene, it seems all but certain that the rapid 
advance of Hannibal on Rome after the battle of Cannae, 
that of Henry of Navarre on Paris after the battle of I\ry, 
or that of Charles Stuart on London after penetrating as far 
as Derby, would have changed the course of human histor}-." 

The determined advance of McClellan on Richmond, 
when Lee was trembling before it with his frail arm}-, wait- 
ing for Jackson to come up, would have resulted in the 
capture of that capital, the annihilation of Lee's army, and 
the collapse of the Confederac}'. Three 3'ears of terrible 
war would have been saved, and the government of the 
Confederac}' would have been known in histor}' as a short 
lived rebellion, while INIcClellan would have lived as a "-reat 



ROBERT E. LEE. 539 

commander. But Lee deluded him and outgeneraled him, 
obtained reinforcements, saved the capital of his govern- 
ment, and drove the best drilled army in the world into the 
swamps of the James River. McClellan will scarcely be 
recognized in history as a commander, but Lee has taken 
his place in the front rank of the world's generals. The 
historians of the war are profuse in tlieir efforts to vindicate 
McClellan from the consequences to his fame caused by his 
wretched failure before Richmond. But the world has no 
disposition to listen to explanations about a disaster; it sim- 
pl}- gives men credit for what they do, and charges them 
with what they fail to do. Without any reference to the 
'' ifs " involved, it strikes a balance on whatever a man has 
done, and at the foot of a page, writes either "success," or 
" failure." 

In Whitaker's " vindication of Mary Queen of Scots," 
that curious writer speculates on possibilities, and has every 
impulse of a generous public favoring his heroine. He only 
shows what might have been. He says, "When depend- 
ence was made on Elizabeth's dying without issue, the 
Countess of Shrewsbury had her son purposely residing in 
London, with two good and able horses continually ready, 
to give the earliest intelligence of the sick Elizabeth's death 
to the imprisoned Mary. Had not this improbable event 
actualty taken place, what a different aspect would our his- 
tory have assumed from what it wears at present! Mary 
would have been carried from a prison to a throne. Her 
wise conduct in prison would have been applauded by all. 
From Tutbury, from Sheffield, from Chatsworth, she would 
have been said to have touched with a gentle and inasterly 
hand the springs that actuated all the nation, against the 
death of her tyrannical cousin." 



540 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

While every authoi- is touched with the infirmities of his 
hero, and history becomes docile in the hands of the his- 
torian, yet the great facts of what is done in life, or not 
done, can not be overthrown, and Mary is being forgotten 
except by sympathy, and Elizabeth continues to be regarded 
as England's great queen. 

When the spring of 1863 had opened, General Lee 
decided to mo\-e into the enemy's country. His first move- 
ment was to draw the Federal army away from its position 
on the Rappahannock. By a masterly strategy in less than 
two weeks he drew Hooker from his entrenchments to the 
Upper Potomac, and planted the three corps of his own 
army in strong positions within supporting distance of each 
other, and from which they could command an easy entrance 
into the enem3-'s soil, without the risk of being molested by 
Hooker. General George G. Meade, an able and cautious 
commander, had now taken charge of the Federal forces. 
Divining Lee's purpose in pushing to Gettysburg, because 
it was a strategic point, Meade also drove his army thither 
by forced marches. The Federal cavalry reached there 
first,. and occupied the town. Lee was now far removed 
from his base of operations, and failing to secure the coveted 
location, it is strange that he permitted himself to be drawn 
into battle. His army had before it the task of storming a 
rocky fortress, stronger than that against which Burnside 
had dashed his army so madly at Fredericksburg, and every 
chance of success lay with the Federals. But he explains 
the situation in his report: "Finding ourselves thus con- 
fronted, it became a matter of great difficulty to withdraw 
through the mountains with our large trains. A battle thus 
became in a measure unavoidable. Encouraged b}' the suc- 
cessful issue of the engagement of the first day, and in vie\v 



ROBERT E. LEE. 54,1 

of the valuable results that would ensue from the defeat of 
the army of General Meade, it was thought advisable to 
renew the attack." 

The battle raged with var3Mng success, until Lee saw he 
would be unable to take the city unless he silenced the bat- 
teries with which the Federals had lined the crest of Ceme- 
tery Hill. Major General Pickett was commanded to move 
forward and carry the position. Thirteen thousand men 
moved forward across the open plains in front of the enemy's 
works. They were greeted with terrific discharges of grape 
and canister which mowed them down by scores. Still the 
line moved on magnificently as if on parade. Suddenly, 
when the crest was almost reached, the hill blazed with 
the fire of the Federal infantr}', and one division, alter a 
gallant resistance, was forced back. Pickett's own division 
continued to press forward. 

" Steady they step adown the slope, 

Steady they cUmb the hill, 
Steady they load, steady they fire, 

Marching right onward still." 

While the iron hail-storm, sweeping through their ranks, 
strewed the earth with their dead and dying. There was no 
wavering. The gaps in their line were closed up as fast as 
made, and with wild cheers of triumph they gained the crest, 
drove the Federals from the works, and amid the gloom and 
smoke, General Lee saw through the glass the battle flag of 
the South waving from the crest of Cemetery Ridge. The 
triumph was dearly won, and was as brief as it was glorious. 
The grand charge had been in vain. Every brigade com- 
mander, and all but one field officer, had fallen. The enemy 
rallied on his second line, and poured a withering fire into the 
captui-ed works. His sweeping fire was rapidly thinning 



542 TUB GENIUS OF TyDUSTliT. 

the victorious ranks; all that courage could do had 
been done, and it remained but to save the remnant of 
the division. The order was given to fall back, and the dec- 
imated ranks retired slowly and sullenl}' over the ground 
they had immortalized. As he saw his men driven back 
from the heights, General Lee placed a finger thoughtfully 
upon his lips, the only sign of perplexity he was ever known 
to exhibit. He realized the gravity of the situation. The 
Federal army was too strong to be driven from its position, 
and he could not attempt to hold the country in its presence. 
He could no longer hope for a successful issue to his invasion 
of the North, and on the following day his shattered ranks 
once more tm^ned their faces towards Virginia. The hero- 
ism of the man could not be overthrown by the victorious 
cannons of theenem}'; he was still the leader of the army, 
holding the unbroken confidence of his men, and in his gen- 
erosity alone assuming the responsibility of the defeat. To 
General Wilcox, when he came to report the failure of the 
attack, he said, " Never mind, General; all this has been my 
fault; it is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me 
out of it the best way 3'ou can." 

When General Lee embarked in the cause of the South, 
he was the possessor of considerable wealth. His estate fell 
into the hands of the enemy at the outset, and by the close of 
1862 his other property was within the Federal lines, and of 
no service to him. He was dependent upon his pay as a gen- 
eral of the Confederate army. This soon became inadequate 
to the task of providing for his family, and they, in common 
with the people of the South, were subjected to hardships 
and privations. When this became known to the citizens of 
Richmond, the city government appropriated a large sum of 
money for the purpose of purchasing a residence for his fam- 



ROBERT E. LEE. 543 

ily. On being notified of the generous action, General Lee 
at once declined the gift, and asked the Cit}' Council to devote 
the means to the necessities of the families of the soldiers in 
the field. The incident was equal to the dying Sydney hand- 
ing the cup of water to the private soldier on the field of Zut- 
phen. After the retreat from Gettysburg the army went 
into winter quarters, it was the winter of '63 and '64. 

In January the government found itself unable to procure 
a sufficient supply of provisions for the army. The conse- 
quent reduction of rations proved a great trial to the General's 
interest in the soldiers. With that steadfast patriotism to be 
one with his men, he not only kept his quarters on the field 
with their insufficient accommodations, but the rations on his 
table were the same as theirs. His ordinary dinner consisted 
of a head of cabbage boiled in salt water, and a pone of 
corn bread. He one da}^ invited a company of visitors to 
dine with him, and in a fit of extravagance ordered the cab- 
bage boiled with middling. The dinner was served, and be- 
hold: a great pile of cabbage and a bit of middling about four 
inches long and two inches across ! The guests with com- 
mendable politeness unanimously declined middling, and it 
reinained in the dish untouched. The next day the General 
remembering the delicate tit-bit, which had been so provid- 
entially preserved, ordered his servant to "bring that mid- 
dling." The man hesitated, scratched his head, and finally 
owned up. "De fac' is, Marse Robert, dat ar middlin' 
was borrowed middlin'; we all did'nt had nar' a spec; an' I 
done paid it back to de man whar I got it from." The 
General heaved a sigh of deep disappointment, and pitched 
into his cabbage 

The campaign of the following year found General Grant 
in command of the Federal forces. With his vast energies 



544 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

he massed a mighty army between Washington and Rich- 
mond, and moved across the Rapidan, proposing to over- 
whehii Lee by numbers, if he could not be defeated by 
strategy and battle. Grant moved around his enemy's flank, 
proposing to cut oft' his communications, but Lee rushed 
out of his entrenchments, and hurled iiis cohimns against his 
antagonist, M^hen he least expected it, and held him back in 
the wilderness during that unparalleled battle ot" a week's 
duration which finally compelled him to abandon his 
original movement. He then attempted to plant his army 
between Lee and Richmond, at Spottsylvania. In this he 
was foiled. A renewed eftbrt to outflank Lee was made by 
way of the Pamunky; this also failed, and a final masterly 
eftbrt was made at Chickahominy, which was repulsed at a 
terrible cost. If Grant lost sixty thousand men in these 
engagements, as reports indicate, he lost more men than Lee 
had in his army. A more heroic and strategic eftbrt is not 
recorded in the annals of war than this campaign of Gen- 
eral Lee to preserve Richmond from the countless host that 
menaced it. General Grant now decided to abandon the 
favorite scheme of his government — the co\-ering of Wash- 
ington Cit}'. He struck out in the boldness of his military 
genius and executed the greatest movement of the Northern 
army during the war. He proposed to cover Washington 
by threatening Petersburg and Richmond. Thq, two armies 
faced each other in strong entrenchments near Petersburg, 
but neither dared to make a general attack upon the other. 
When the spring of 1S65 opened, the cause of the South 
was in a desperate strait. The people had lost confidence 
in their President and Congress, the army was starving, and 
all classes were reduced to poxert}' and want. Everj'where 
ruin threatened the cause. In this hour of darkness the 



ROBERT E. LEE. 545 

country turned to General Lee as its last hope. His inte- 
grity and wisdom had never been impeached, and the people 
had given him the reverent homage of admiration and con- 
fidence. The demand that he be put at the head of all the 
armies became too powerful to be longer resisted, and the 
Confederate Congress formalh' declared him commander-in- 
chief. 

General Lee shrunk from the sublime responsibility now 
placed upon him, but, like Charles XII of Sweden, when .he 
saw the government on the ver}' verge of disaster, he seized 
the sword with a firm hand. The desire was rapidly grow- 
ing general that he become a militar}' dictator, as the last 
hope of saving the cause. This he would not hear to. Had 
he accepted dictatorial power in the hopeless condition of 
affairs, he could do no more than prolong the agony of their 
death. It was a profound heroism for him to accept the 
headship of the armies, for he knew the South was doomed 
already, and one more campaign would forever close its 
existence; and that in its fall the disapointment and ruin of 
the people and the cause would be visited upon him. But 
true to the patriotism of his soldierly instincts, he dutifully 
accepted the responsibility his government laid upon him. 
In the spring of 1S65 General Lee found his army reduced 
to thirty-three thousand men. He was unable to engage 
Grant in general battle, and that pushing General swept his 
cavalry down the valley, and at Five Forks made good the 
movement he had been "hammering" on for eleven months 
— he turned Lee's flank. Lee was now compelled to re- 
treat from Petersburg. The remnant of his army fell back 
for more than one hundred miles, repeatedly presenting front 
to his antagonist, and giving battle so as to prevent his pro- 
gress. Finally his exhausted army, with eight thousand 



546 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

men bearing arms, and eighteen thousand stragglers, sur- 
rendered at Appomattox. Since General Lee had taken 
command of the army of Northern Virginia he had made a 
campaign unexampled in the history of defensive warfare. 
Neither Bonaparte nor Marlborough could have withstood 
the great odds against him; for one half of four years the 
former lived on victories; one defeat crushed him. 

General Lee was careful of the lives of his men, fertile in 
resource, a profound tactician, gifted with the swift intuition 
which enables a commander to discover the purpose of an 
enemy, and the power of rapid combination which enables 
him to oppose to it a prompt resistance; among men, noble 
as the noblest, in the lofty dignity of the Christian gentle- 
man; combining the religious simplicity of Havclock with 
the genius of Hannibal, the heroism of Bayard and Sydney, 
and the untiring, never-faltering duty of Wellington. Like 
Napoleon, his troops soon learned to believe him equal to 
any emergency war could bring. Like Raglan, he pre- 
served a sweetness of temper that no person or circumstance 
could ruffle. Like Cajsar, he mixed with the crowd of 
soldierh' freely, and never feared that his position would be 
forgotten. Like Blucher, his one recognized fault was — 
that which the soldier readily forgives — a readiness to 
expose his life beyond the proper limits permitted b}' modern 
war to the commander-in-chief." 

He commanded an arm}' that would have died for him; 
an army from which his parting wrung tears; an arm}' that 
followed him through three years of vicissitudes until their 
ranks were worn so thin and haggard they could not be 
called an arm}', and then stacked arms at Appomatox with- 
out thought of further resistance when they saw him sheath 



ROBERT E. LEE. 547 

forever his unblemished sword, and ask them to go with 
hitn from the arts of war to the toils of peace. 

General Lee inet adversity with the same cheerfulness he 
had displa3-ed in the midst of success. The tranquility of 
his calm and amiable nature never surrendered to either 
victory or defeat. From the moment of his surrender he 
endeavored, as far as la}' in his power, to promote the return 
of peace and good will between the two sections of the 
country. To all who sought his advice he recommended a 
prompt and sincere submission to the laws of the United 
States, for his judgment told him the best way for the 
South to restore her prosperity was in a sincere acceptance 
of the situation. The North recognized him as a general 
with few equals in history, and his conscientious carrying 
out of the surrender, in all of its bearings, by his plea for 
the restoration of peace and harmony, won for him a place 
of high regard with every true patriot. 

He was now advanced in 3'ears and without means or 
position to secure even the daily bread for his family. In 
August, 1865, he was offered the Presidency of Washington 
College, in Lexington, Virginia, and accepted the position. 
It relieved him from public affairs, and gave an opportunity 
for the exercise of his fine executive ability. His installation 
as President, at his own request, was after the simplest 
manner possible. As his first step he sought to become 
acquainted with the students. Each candidate, on register- 
ing his name for entrance to the college, was conducted to 
the President's room and given an introduction. In this 
way he obtained a personal acquaintance and some idea of 
the qualities in each student. In view of the vast number 
coming to Washington during his presidency this would 
seem to be an impossible task; with ordinary men it would 



548 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

have been such. He put his mind to whatever he did. He 
knew every student in the college, and would greet each one 
b}" name whenever they met. . At one of the ineetings of 
the faculty, for the purpose of reviewing the roll of the 
attendants, a name was read out which was not familiar to 
his ear. He repeated the name to himself with a slow and 
heavy emphasis on each syllable, adding, with evident sur- 
prise, " I have no recollection of a student of that name. It 
is very strange that I have forgotten him. I thought I 
knew every one in the college. How long has he been 
here.-*" Nor would he be satisfied until it was settled b}' 
an investigation, that the student had recently entered and 
was admitted in the President's absence; so that, in fact, 
the latter had never seen him. 

When General Lee became president of Washington Col- 
lege there were six^y students in attendance, and four active 
professors. At the end of five 3'ears, when death closed his 
labors, there were twenty professors and four hundred stu- 
dents. His labors at Washington, so devoted, so full of far- 
reaching plans, and of will and successful effort, was begun 
under the weight of a disappointment which might have bro- 
ken any ordinary strength, and was maintained in the midst 
of public and private misfortunes, with a serene patience, and 
a mingled firmness and sweetness of temper that give addi- 
tional brilliancy even to the glory of his former fame. He 
met the temptations and the perils of the highest stations be- 
fore the e3'es of the world, and the cares and labors of the 
most responsible duties of private life, under the tr}ing cir- 
cumstances, and exhibited in all the qualities of a consistent 
character, sustained by the loftiest principles of virtue and 
religion. He was a man profoundly true, deep centered in 
principles, always actuated by a sense of dut}', and operated 



ROBERT E. LEE. 549 

by the same materials in his nature, whether he commanded 
the whirl and thunder of battle that shook the solid globe, or 
directed the silent and peaceful destiny of college halls. An 
acquaintance sa3's, " I was permitted to see, during five years, 
the daily effects of his power in the college — the skill with 
which he managed its affairs, and enthusiasm with which he 
inspired all who came in contact with him, until he had one 
of the hardest-working Faculties, and one of the most orderl}', 
studious bodies of young men in the country. I was im- 
pressed with the conviction that he was not only the best sol- 
dier, but also the best college president, whom the country 
had ever produced." 

The most trying scenes of army life never drew from him 
a hasty word, and the greatest misfortunes never brought an 
utterance of reproach on the deserving cause. He was a 
manly man. An English nobleman appreciating his poverty 
after the close of the war, thinking he would rejoice in some 
place of retreat, offered him a splendid country seat, and a 
handsome annuity. He replied: "I am deeply grateful, 
but I can not consent to desert my native State in the hour 
of her adversity. I must abide her fortunes and share her 
fate." 

On the afternoon of September 28th, 1870, he attended 
the vestry meeting of Grace Episcopal Church, of which he 
was a member. The church was cold and damp, he was 
chairman, but sat with his military cape cast loosel}' about 
him. Toward the close of the meeting it was ascertained 
the minister's salary had not yet been fully made up. When 
the treasurer announced the deficit still remaining. General 
Lee said, in a low tone: "Just add that balance to my sub- 
scription," and adjourned the meeting. As a friend walked 
home with him, he seemed tired, and there was a flush on his 



550 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

face. The family were waiting tea, and at once proceeded 
to the table, where standing, as was his wont to return thanks, 
his lips could not utter the prayer. He sank quietly into his 
seat, helpless. He was borne to his couch, beyond the skill 
of physicians. The great powers of his life were worn out. 
His decline was rapid, 3'et gentle. His mind seemed to revert 
to the old scenes, and once when it wandered, just before 
death, he said, with emphasis, " Tell Hill he must come up! " 
On the morning of October 12th he closed his eyes, and his 
soul passed peacefully from earth. 




,^^m 



<5CVUK>> 





mm^E,^^ jimi^- 



"Order is heaven's first law." 

Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings, — 
Solomon. 

Duty by habit is to pleasure turn'd; 
He IS content who to obey has learn'd. 

— Str S- E. Brydges. 

Show me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my faith by my 
'NOxV.^.— .James. 




^ij^ii}^^<^ 




HEN we take hold of habits to discuss them we 
T»Yi;ij enter upon a field of thought that challenges a 
c*'ic*^'v rounded and full survey. We can not limit our- 
selves to the mere mechanism and automatism of man, much 
as they have to do with creating this tyrannical master — 
Habit. Two kinds of forces operate the affairs of this life 
— moral and physical. One kind is as real as the other, 
although the best thinkers have not succeeded in demon- 
strating the fact. It is hard, say the people, to take hold of 
invisible things, as though moral force were invisible. Give 
us something tangible and practical, say they, and we will 
embrace it. They can discern a Great Eastern plowing its 
bulky way through the main, laden down to the guards 
with cargo, and they can appreciate this. But if a Spurgeon 
set his sail to the breezes of truth, that he may bear the 
burden of London's sins away, and if thousands on thousands 
of weary people are thereby relieved and refreshed, they 
affect not to discover any utility in such a force. 

Now the question is. Can the habits of men, as influenc- 
ing their business, be satisfactorily analyzed without refer- 
ence to such things, for example, as honor and integrity .-' 
If a man ignore and scout them, denying verbal contracts 



554 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

because there were no witnesses by, or evading prompt pay- 
ments by taking ad\'antage of some slight technicalit}- in 
law — if a man do thus, will he thrive and last on the street? 

Deeper down in the business character lie the moral facul- 
ties, essential to and inseparable from it. In illustration we 
call attention to some information respecting the social and 
political condition of the Dutch recently sent to this country 
b}- our minister at the Hague. He says there has not been 
a bank failure in Holland during the last forty years, and 
that the paper money of the banks during that time has been 
equal to gold. There is no such thing as the failure of a 
fire insurance company on record, and while the rate of 
insurance does not average inore than a half of one per cent., 
the companies are in the most flourishing condition, realiz- 
ing twelve to sixteen per cent, per annum. First-class rail- 
road travel is only one cent per mile, and 3"et the roads pay 
good dividends. Pilfering ofBciais are scarcel}' ever heard 
of, and when they shock the nation by turning up, they are 
se^•erely punished and forever disgraced. Dishonesty of any 
kind or failure in business ineans public dishonor, and utterly 
bars the dishonest from any future public consideration. 
Four millions of people live within an area of twenty-nine 
thousand square miles, and all appear to be happy, prosper- 
ous and contented. The secret of this prosperit}' lies in the 
fact that all live within their income, and that industry and 
honesty are principles firmly established in the national 
character. 

Whether we rank habit among the moral powers or not, 
its influence remains the same. There are times in the life 
of every man when fate seems to thrust almost overwhelm- 
ing burdens upon him, and nothing but the sustaining power 
of habit, gathered through long 3-ears of continuance in well 



BUSINESS HABITS. 555 

doing, can save him from being utterly crushed. And yet 
the action on his part is neither premeditated nor vokintary. 
It comes up, prompt to time, like Blucher's corps at Water- 
loo, and saves the day. The habit of talking about nothing 
but religion saved John Wesley's religious reputation to 
posterit}'; for if he had ever stopped to quarrel with that 
Xantippe of a wife, or reply to his slanderers, he would have 
fallen. Who has not seen men perform certain good deeds 
by sheer force of habit, and felt at the time there was no 
praise deserved .^ The constant repetition of the thing had 
developed a habit which became second nature. The habit 
of looking toward the right precluded them from seeing the 
wrong. It would have created a jar and a pain had it been 
resisted. Observing this, some one has felt constrained to 
say, "All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself" The 
silken threads of smiles and gentle airs so wove themselves, 
by constant practice, into the web of Chesterfield's char- 
acter, that he sat in the House of Lords during a most 
malicious assault on his honor, unruffled as a day in June, 
parrying the fiercest of invectives with the softest of words. 
But one frail wire was at first thrown across the Niagara, 
then another was added, and another, until the spider's web 
became a woven cable, and great loaded trains now pass in 
safety over the Suspension Bridge. " Like flakes of snow 
that fall unperceived upon the earth," says Jerem}' Bentham, 
■ " the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one 
another. As the snow gathers together, so are our habits 
formed; no single flake that is added to the pile produces a 
sensible change; no single action creates, however it mny 
exhibit, a man's character; but as the tempest hurls the 
avalanche down the mountain, and overwhelms the inhabi- 
tant and his habitation, so passion, acting upon the elements 



556 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

of mischief which pernicious habits have brought together 
by imperceptible accumulation, may overthrow the edifice 
of truth and virtue." 

There is value in steady accretions. Insects even know 
this, and from the bottom of the ocean to the surface, by 
the deposit of their little particles, rear the coral continent. 
One tick of the clock is an insignificant thing, but after a 
while it has ticked an hour into eternit}', and still we think 
it small, but on the tireless little trifler ticks until its accu- 
mulated strokes toll us into eternity, and our hopes and aims 
are gone forever. 

Life is made up of little acts. As a man spends his 
moments, so will he spend his hours. The world judges of 
a man by some great deed he has done. The judgment is 
well founded. The great deed is only an armful of his little 
deeds. A lake is only a larger pond; a mountain is only an 
enlarged hill; a great deed is only a little one fully grown. 
In the majorit}' of cases where men have attained success, it 
has been greatly owing to the cultivated habit of attention 
to little things. 

The success of a business man depends measurabl}' on his 
habits. If he have good business habits, allied to average 
business abilities, then may he depend on realizing more 
than average success. Man}' literary men have thought 
the business man was much like a blind horse on the tread- 
mill — he had only to walk on the beaten track, and let 
affairs take their natural course. Hazlitt, in his clever essay 
on " Thought and Action," regards a business life as a mere 
plodding affair, and the routine of business simpl)' machine 
work. " The great requisite," he says, "for the prosperous 
management of ordinary business is the want of imagination, 
or of any ideas but those of custom and interest on the nar- 



BUSiySSS HABITS. 557 

rowest scale. Take what you can get, keep what you can 
get, seize eagerly every opportunity that offers for promot- 
ing your own interest, and make the most of the advantages 
you have already obtained, and, by plodding, persevering 
industry, }'ou will become a first-class merchant." 

This is but a one-sided view. Of course, there are nar- 
row-minded men in business, as there are in every pursuit. 
But it is an utterly low view of business which regards it as 
onlv a means of getting a living. Every man ought to 
realize that he has a mission in life, and that his business is 
the channel by which he fulfills it. An}- other view of bus- 
iness is selfish and degrading. Hazlitt himself refuted in 
practice the doctrine of his essay; for no man ever wrote 
more assiduously for a commercial consideration than Wil- 
liam Hazlitt. 

Narrow men in every pursuit are numerous. But the 
great men in ever}' pursuit are few. The}' may almost be 
counted on the fingers. The clerical profession boasts but 
few Augustines, Chr}'sostoms, Luthers, Calvins, Wesleys 
and Campbells; the militar}' but few Caesars, Bonapartes 
and Grants; the diplomatic but few Talleyrands, INIarlbor- 
oughs and Bismarcks; the legal but few Cokes, Eldons and 
Marshalls. As Burke said, " There are statesmen who act 
as peddlers, and merchants who act in the spirit of states- 
men." There is opportunity in almost e^•ery pursuit for 
men to distinguish themselves, and consummate business 
men are as rare as great writers or statesmen. 

Among money getters there are but few Rothschilds, 
Grays and Vanderbilts; among inventors but few Palissys, 
Morses and Howes; among merchants but few Shillittos, 
Claflins and Stewarts; among farmers but few Kents, 
Strawns and Greenes. Nature is a just mother, and all her 



558 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

industries are much nearer a level than the world commonly 
supposes. When did warrior, artist or statesman ever 
exhibit greater research, concentration of aim and sagacit}' 
than Bernard Pallissy in the production of glaze to cover 
pottery? If we take into account the qualities necessary 
for the successful conduct of any important undertaking — 
that it requires special aptitude, decision of character, perse- 
verance, often capacity for organizing the labors of large 
numbers of men, a profound knowledge of human nature, 
and the relation of activities and results — it is evident that 
business demands the essential elements of a successful life 
as much as the professions. 

When we see A. T. Stewart conducting a business that, 
near and remote, requires as vast an army of operatives as 
Bonaparte had soldiers at Austerlitz; taxing the producers 
of every clime; on the war-path with ten thousand com- 
petitors scattered over the area of a continent; and then die 
serenely after accumvilating fifty millions of dollars; or, 
when a Henry W. Smith brings " Black Frida}' " to Wall 
street, a pale face to the secretary of a nation's treasury, 
and makes the financial foundations of a republic quake, we 
are ready to conclude that there are colossal powers in men 
of business as well as in warriors and statesmen 

The path of success in any calling is usually the path of 
common sense. Many of the most successful men in the 
professions have acquired habits of patient labor and appli- 
cation in their earlier days, when they stood b}' the forge or 
followed the plow. The old Greeks said: " To become an 
able man in any profession three things are necessary — 
nature, study, and practice." These are the very tools that 
make a good business man. Was not Spinoza a polisher of 
glass? Was not Chaucer a hardy soldier? Was not Coper- 



BUSINESS HABITS. 559 

nicus a baker? Was not Linngeus a leather pounder? 
These men, by their toihngs, laid the foundations of char- 
acter on which, afterward, they reared their imperishable 
works. How it would goad a modern literatus to peddle 
oil like Plato or make tents like Paul to pay his current 
expenses. 

Books can never teach the use of books; neither can the 
knowledge of a thing insure the practice of it. A man ma}' 
write a vigorous essay on economy, as Sheridan did, and 
then follow him further in the squandering of a half a dozen 
fortunes. A man may talk advisedly against the credit 
system, entreating all to avoid it like poison, and yet all the 
while be fleeing from creditors like Jean Paul Richter. 

Many men are capable of giving wholesome advice; few, 
in their own case, put it into execution. Many men can 
conduct a business economically and profitably for others, 
but fail in every investment they make for themselves. 

William Pitt, without a family, spent an income of £6,000 
a year, dj'ing hopelessly in debt. The same man ruled 
England for a quarter of a century with less expense and 
more prosperously than any premier for a hundred years 
previous. Macaulay sa3's: "The character of Pitt would 
have stood higher if to the disinterestedness of Pericles and 
DeWitt he had united their dignified frugality." These 
men who counsel and manage so wisely for others, but can 
never utilize their abilities in the conduct of their own 
affairs, form a numerous body. Carlyle wittily observes 
that " they are obe3'ing man's highest mission — spending 
themselves for the good of others." 

Sheridan was one of the wisest and wittiest of men. He 
stood on the vantage ground of genius and scholarship. Pos- 
sessing an amazing facility for composition — dashing otT 



560 THE GENIUS OF IXDUSTRT. 

" Pizarro " at one sitting in a club-room — he could with a 
stroke touch the apex of thought, tracing the subtlest meta- 
physician througli all his dim and de\-ious windings, expos- 
ing the fallacies of each Utopian schemer, or breaking the 
logician on the rack of some unforseen dilemma. Yet this 
prodigy, in whom the powers of the mind seemed to work 
instinctively, when he came into the theatre of daily business 
acted the very character that he had made tne butt of his 
ridicule. 

INIirabeau, the thunderer of the forum, whose political strat- 
egy and social wit were the envy and admiration of all France, 
could not contrive to earn his daily bread, and died indebted 
to the tailor for his wedding suit." Sterne did not reserve a 
penny for his old age, and was so miserably poor that, on 
dying, his friends passed a subscription to buy mourning 
dresses for his wife and daughter. Butler, the satirist of the 
seventeenth centur3^ whose learning, wit, and ingenious 
thought, as spoken by Sir Hudibras and his squire, Ralph, 
in that unrivaled poem, " Hudibras," died of star\ation in 
Rose Alley. Beethoven's sonatas have ravished with delight 
the ears of all music lovers, yet he did not know enough to 
cut the coupon from a bond, to raise a little money, instead 
of selling the entire instrument. At times he was so strait- 
ened for means that he dined daily simpl}' on a roll of bread 
and a glass of water; at another time, when flush with money, 
he paid his tailor three hundred florins in advance, and sent 
a friend the same amount to buy him some shirts and a half- 
dozen pocket-handkerchiefs. The brilliant but dissolute 
Otway was hunted by bailiffs to his last hiding-place on Tower 
Hill. His last act was to beg a shilling of a gentleman, and 
buy a loaf to appease his hunger. He died, choked by the first 
mouthful. Savage, though his tragedies stamped him a gen- 



BUSIA'£:SS UADITS. 561 

ius, and his poems were written with a divine pathos, was 
kept from the ahnshouse a great portion of his hfe by the 
Crown and the contributions of Pope. He usually spent his 
annual pension of fift}' pounds within live days after receiv- 
ing it. Once during his time it was fashionable to wear scar- 
let cloaks trimmed with gold lace, and Johnson met him one 
day just after he had got his pension, with one of these gor- 
geous affairs on his back, while at the same time his naked 
toes were sticking out through his shoes. He finall}' died in 
prison, lying under a debt of eight pounds. 

And what was the pivot on which the lives of all these men 
swung over into disaster.? It was their indisposition to seize 
and keep in hand the daily business that belongs to all. John- 
son, in concluding his ''Life of Savage," very tersely ob- 
serves: "This relation will not be wholly without its use if 
those who, in confidence of superior capacities or attainments, 
disregard the common maxims of life, shall be reminded that 
nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence 
and irregularity, long continued, will make knowledge useless, 
wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." 

Montaigne, in one of his essa5's, speaking of true philoso- 
phers, says: " If the}' were great in science, they were yet 
much greater in action; "'^ * * and whenever they have 
been put upon the proof, they have been seen to fiy to so 
high a pitch, as made it very well appear their souls were 
strangely elevated and enriched with the knowledge of 
things." This keen and discriminating thought on the prop- 
erly-developed man he illustrates by a passage in the life of 
his favorite, Thales: " Thales, once, inveighing in discourse 
against the pains and care men put themselves to to become 
rich, was answered b}' one in the company ' that he did like 
the fox, who found fault with what he could not obtain.' 



56a TEE GENIUS OF INDTJSTBY. 

Thereupon Thales had a mind, for the jest's sake, to show 
them the contrary; and having upon this occasion for once 
made a muster of all his wits, wholly to emplo}- them in the 
service of profit, he set a traffic on foot, which in one year 
brought him so great riches that the most experienced in that 
trade could hardl}' in their whole lives, with all their indus- 
try have raked so much together." 

The man who is a giant in the closet and a child in the 
world will find his half-developed self at a strange disadvan- 
tage with the things that make for success in the world. The 
great fault lies in the fact that the culture has been bestowed 
disproportionately. Such persons may have been drilled in 
the text books, but have never been marshaled on the field. 
They have been taught that devotion to imaginative and 
philosophical literature, with singleness of heart, would very 
soon bring the world under their chariot wheels. They have 
given themselves up wholly to A'igorous thinking. Life also 
demands vigorous acting. 

Culture properly bestowed does not make hobb3'ists. It 
inakes live, real, ready men. It endows them with tact to 
take hold of the vital questions of life and solve them profit- 
ably; discipline, b}' which each thought and act is jointly 
trained to reach one common end ; together with such knowl- 
edge as they must avail themselves of if the}- would treat 
with the world hopefully, intending to win. Polish and aes- 
thetics are poor things to buy bread with. A man will be 
perpetually in the breach unless he has sense enough to wall 
it up. Let our poets and our preachers, our artists and our 
astronomers, our law3-ers and our phj'sicians, our professors 
and our philosophers bestow more time on material matters 
and less on ethereal; and let our schools and colleges remem- 
ber to make men — stalwart, invincible men — men who are. 



BUSINESS HABITS. 563 

neither to be tripped up by the tricks of fortune nor trodden 
down by the heel of rivah-y. 

We are glad to know that all professional men are not bus- 
iness failures. Jefferson could either draft " The Declaration'' 
or manage a plantation. Theodore Parker was one of the 
best ax-men in his region. Alexander Campbell could trans- 
late the Testament, debate theological problems, endow and 
carry on a college, and manage successfully half a dozen 
farms. Evarts managed a farni and the nation's business be- 
sides, not finding his superabundant lore any hindrance. 
Beecher is equally at home with men, machinery, literature, 
theology, politics, flowers and farming. Thiers was orator, 
philosopher, historian and statesman. Lamb was one of the 
cleverest clerks in the India House. Calvin controlled the 
municipalit}' of Geneva. 

It is perhaps needless to dwell at length on the necessity 
of concentration of aim. Of the men who have come to 
distinction the great multitude have wrought with but one 
thought in the mind. Few men have lived who were able 
to accomplish two great intentions. Some one has said that 
a good business man ought not to be able to appreciate a 
joke unless it has a business point in it. He must love his 
business so devotedl}' that he has a keener appreciation for 
things connected with it than for an)^thing else. A man 
cannot succeed without bringing his whole mind, soul and 
strength to the altar of his calling. He must love it as a 
whole, and its drudgery and details, with a passion amount- 
ing to enthusiasm. A yell and a dash have won a battle 
when all day cannonades have done nothing but raise the 
dust. 

It has been remarked that the difference between an ord- 
inary mind and the mind of a Newton consists principally in 



564 THE GEXIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

this, that the one is capable of more continuous attention 
than the other — that a Newton is able, without fatigue, to 
connect inference with inference in one long series toward a 
determined end; while the man of inferior capacity is soon 
obliged to break or let fall the thread which he has begun to 
spin. * * * ''Nay, genius itself," sa3's Helvetius, "is noth- 
ing but a higher power of attention." "In the exact 
sciences, at least, " says Cuvier, " it is the patience of sound 
intellect, when invincible, which truly constitutes genius." 
And Chesterfield has also observed that " the power of ap- 
pl3'ing an attention undeviatingl}^ to a single object is the 
sure mark of a superior genius." 

A patient concentration of attention to one subject is then 
recognized as of prime importance to successful work. The 
ability to concentrate the thoughts and energies is to a 
degree natural. But ever}' man possessed of zuill power can, 
by continued effort, attain such singleness of action that he 
becomes oblivious of all else. It is said that Lord Palmer- 
ston was naturally dissipated in thought, but b}- giving 
himself resolutely to one thing at a time he so far over- 
came his native tendencies that oneness of thought and aim 
became his leading characteristic. He would take his seat 
in his carriage for a ride, and having some topic laid aside 
for this occasion, would at once marshal his forces for the 
onset. The carriage would whirl by the noble dukes and 
lords, but he saw them not; roll through Grosvenor Square, 
but he knew it not; take a spin through the West End, but 
he recognized it not; draw up before his door with a jerk 
but his thoughts were elsewhere. The driver would open 
the door, and say, "Home, my Lord." Palmerston would 
wake up and step out, saying, " Had a nice ride, didn't we, 
Tom t " 



BUSIXESii HABITS. 565 

It is said a Yankee can splice a rope in many different 
ways; an English sailor knows but one mode, but that mode 
is the best. The English are noted for singleness of pur- 
pose, hence whate\er an Englishman 'does, he does well. 
But the average American imagines himself a failure unless 
he has a half-dozen irons in the fire; hence he is too fre- 
quently Jack-of-all-trades and good for none. 

Mental dissipation is ruining our literary men, and busi- 
ness dissipation is bankrupting our business men. The half- 
hearted, half-decided, double-aimed men ne\er win the 
victories. Old Dr. Alexander used to say to the young- 
preachers, " Many ministers are eniliusiastic about other 
things, such as art, poetr}-, authorship, politics; but their 
Sabbath sermon is like a sponge from which all the moisture 
is squeezed out. Live for yowx sermon — live in your ser- 
mon. Get some starling to cry, sei-mon, seriiwn, sermon!'''' 

Whatever your calling, say with Paul, " this one thing I 
do." Then take the advice of Solomon: " Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with th}- might." You can not 
afford to dawdle away a moment of time. Know your bus- 
iness in all its details. Marry it. Take it with you wher- 
ever you go, and your devotion will tell on the profit side of 
the ledger. 

The faculty of self-control is a virtue in the business man. 
The man who resists impulses and controls himself is more 
than an animal. He drills his desires and keeps them in 
subjection to the higher powers of his nature. " He that 
ruleth his own spirit is mightier than he that taketh a cit}"." 
Herbert Spencer, in his Social Statics, says: "In the 
supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of 
the ideal man. Not to be impulsive — not to be spurred 
hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes upper- 



566 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

most — but to be self-restrained, self-balanced, governed by 
the joint decisions of the feelings in council assembled, before 
whom every action shall ha\e been full}' debated and calmly 
determined — that it is which education, moral education at 
least, strives to produce." The home, the seminar}-, and 
the world, are the graded schools in which this valiant vir- 
tue is trained. Purity of mind, serenity of temperament, 
and judicious speech, become habitual and are built into the 
nature by careful self-discipline. 

The best support of self control is in habit. We are the 
willing subjects or we become the servile slaves of habit. 
As we control ourselves in the formative stages of our char- 
acter, so does habit prove a benignant ruler or a cruel despot. 
Some one said " eloquence was the quality most needed in 
a prime minister; " another said it was "knowledge;" and 
a third said it was "wit." Mr. Pitt, listening to the con- 
versation, said, "No, it is patience." Patience is often 
regarded as a slow virtue, but in William Pitt it crowded 
competitors like a winning race horse. Earl Stanhope says 
he one day found Mr. Christmas, Pitt's private secretary, 
over head and ears in court papers and suffering constant 
interruptions without the least rulBe of temper. He could 
not forego his desire to learn the secret of such equanimity. 
"Well, you shall know it," Mr. Christmas replied, " ]\Ir. 
Pitt gave it to me: Not to lose -my temper., if possible., at 
any time., and never during- the hours of business. My 
labors here commence at nine and end at three; and, acting 
on the advice of the illustrious statesman, / never lose my 
temper during those hours.'''' 

Vehement passions are evidences of power going to waste 
— steam rushing out through the safety-valve for want of 
proper and useful employment. Scores of inen fritter and 



BirSIJ^ESS HABITS. 567 

fume away half their force. Bonaparte and WelHngton 
were irritable in the extreme, and all their passions were of 
a fierce order. But they began a course of rigid self-control 
in early life, and thus, turning the vital force that would 
have been wasted in criminal expenditure on to their single 
aim, they controlled themselves, thereby controlled others, 
and were thus driven on to their great achievements. 

Was not Luther so irritable when a child that the family 
could never please him.^ Was not the chief characteristic 
of the saintly Barrow punching the other boys under the 
eyes.'' Was not Wesley a most inconsiderate boy.'' And 
did not the boy Caesar keep the famil}' forever in a row, so 
that.they sent him off to school to get rid of him.'' Jared 
Sparks says that " Washington's temperament was ardent, 
his passions strong, and sometimes they broke out with 
vehemence; but he had the power of checking them in an 
instant. Perhaps self-control was the most remarkable trait 
of his character." By unwearied self-discipline did these 
men ultimately triumph over their passions, and create out 
of the saved force a crown for their manhood. Whenever 
Stephen Girard heard of a clerk with a strong temper, he 
would seek to employ him, setting him to work in a room 
by himself He claimed that such persons were the best 
workers, and that their energy would expend itself in work 
if so controlled that it could not flow out any other way. 

Blessed is the man who has the habit of keeping things 
that ought not to be spoken. The man whose tongue, like 
Tennyson's book, runs on and " on forever," will surely 
come to difficulty. . A business man ought to be a conver- 
sationalist, but let him be a judicious one. Cromwell and 
Richelieu controlled the affairs of nations. They were 
excellent conversers and always obeyed George Herbert's 



568 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

injunction to " speak fitly or be silently wise." Rothschild 
is said to be an excellent talker, and tells an anecdote with 
as keen a relish as an}' inan in the kingdom. 

The business man needs to exercise the same careful 
wording of his thoughts as does the diplomat ; not such a 
foiler as Talleyrand, but an honest statesman like Seward. 
Marlborough's oil}' and gentle words never forsook him, 
whether at Blenheim with his own raging Sarah, or sooth- 
ing the ravings of the exiled king. His flowing utterances 
were the same, whether entertaining potentates, selling gov- 
ernment patronage, bu}-ing an estate or dictating terms of 
peace to France. He spoke only soft sentences, but then 
the great organ minded its stops. 

It is related that DeLeon, who lay for years in the dun- 
geons of the Inquisition because of his having translated a 
part of the Scriptures into his native tongue, on being liber- 
ated and restored to his professorship, was followed to his 
first lecture by an immense crowd, craving some account of 
his imprisonment, but DeLeon was too wise to indulge in 
recrimination. He merely resumed the lecture which, five 
years before, had been so sadly interrupted, with the accus- 
tomed formula, " Heri dicebamus," and went directly into 
his subject. 

Men who speak in haste are their own worst enemies. 
Like Michael Angelo, their own words become the swords 
that frighten away patronage, sever friendships, and finally 
loosen the floods of remorse that embitter all their life. 
Barry, the painter, quarreled furiously with his patrons, 
berated his customers for their lack of appreciation, and was 
involved in endless disputes with other artists. Edmund 
Burke, that generous friend of struggling merit, wrote to 
him: " Believe me, dear Barry, that the arms with which 



BiTSINESS UABITS. 569 

the ill dispositions of tlie world are to be combated, and the 
qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us, and we 
reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indul- 
gence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; 
which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possi- 
bly think them, but virtues of a great and noble kind, and 
such as dignif}' our nature as much as they contribute to 
our repose and fortune; for nothing can be so unworthy of 
a well-composed soul as to pass away life in bickerings and 
litigations — in snarling and scuffling with every one about 
us. We must be at peace with our species, if not for their 
sakes, at least very much for our own." 

Cultivate, then, the " soft answer" that " turneth away 
wrath " and the pure words that foster chastity of life. 
Speak the truth with gentleness, for to speak crossly when 
one is endeavoring to promote his business, is like spoiling 
an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce. Burns says, 
wisely and well: 

" Reader attend — whether thy soul 
Soars fancy's flight beyond the pole, 
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole 

In low pursuit; 
Know prudent, cautious self-control 

Is Wisdom's root." 

The company a man keeps has much to do with his 
habits. Associates exercise a formative influence on his 
character. And, whatever his native disposition may be, 
that trite old maxim, " A man is known b}^ the company he 
keeps," will assert its truth in the end. Germany had strug- 
gled in the throes of an incipient reformation before Luther 
came. He doffed his robes and went down to live with the 
people. Then it was that his voice rang like a trumpet 



570 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

throughout German}-, and ever}- German became a stern 
reformer. 

Dr. Paley was for three yeai-s, at Cambridge, a spendthrift 
and idler. One morning, after a night's dissipation, an inti- 
mate friend stood by his bedside. " Paley," said he, " I 
have not been able to sleep for thinking of you. I have 
been thinking what a fool you are! / have the means of 
dissipation, and can afford to be idle; yoii are poor, and can 
not atibrd it. / could do nothing, probably, even were I to 
try; you are capable of doing any thing. If you persist in 
your indolence, and go on this way, I must renounce }our 
society altogether." Paley afterward confessed that that 
talk altered his life. He formed new plans; he cultivated 
better habits, by the assistance of better companions. He 
left Christ College the senior wrangler, and the world is 
acquainted with his great career. Old John Brown, of 
" marching-on " fame, once said to Emerson that, " for a 
settler in a new countr}', one good believing man is worth a 
hundred — nay, worth a thousand men without character." 
Chateaubriand said that one interview with Washington 
warmed his heart for the rest of his days and poured virtue 
into his soul. 

A business man can not aftbrd the association of the idle 
and thriftless. The very men that spend their "oft"" hours 
and evenings lounging in your shops are the good-natured 
fellows that are sowing the seeds of bankruptcj; irt your 
habits. 

"Thou art noble; yet, I see, 
Th^■ honorable metal may be wrought 
From that it is disposed. Therefore 't is meet 
That noble minds keep ever with their likes: 
For who so firm, that can not be seduced } " 



Bl'SINESS HABITS. 571 

Accuracy is essential to business success. Scientific men 
complain that the}' are often expected to deduce exact 
truths from inaccurate statements; preachers feel that class- 
meeting Christians are not always accurate in giving the 
details of their experience ; lawyers worr}- and cross-question 
the witnesses to get " just the facts '' in the case. Inaccuracy 
is a pre\-alent American failing. Americans are not liars as 
the Chinese are; but, as Linn would say, an x\merican 
always leaves some of his originality sticking to ever}- thing- 
he tells. This carelessness is not confined to statement 
alone. There is a general looseness in the performance of 
all work. Where is the man that rounds e\'er\- labor up to 
a perfect completion.'' Accuracy is vital to the scientist, 
and no less indispensable to the trader and mechanic. 
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. The 
exact business man has a golden virtue. The slovenl}-, slip- 
shod man loses at every turn, and never learns where the 
leak is. 

Exactness only comes b}' a willingness to go slow, and to 
go with an unrelaxing application. The accountant who 
has habituated himself aright will run a column of figures 
with a Babbage-like rapidity, and set the amount down with 
as much confidence as he would four under two and two. 
The clerk over at the other desk, who has not been trained 
to accuracy, will cast his column four times, and then stum- 
ble when he sets down his figures. 

Putictiiality must be cultivated by every seeker after bus- 
iness success. This virtue, which is the politeness of kings, 
is essential in every calling, whether lott}' or humble. A 
punctual man wins the confidence of all who have to do 
with him. A man whose name on the trader's book is 
quoted for one thousand dollars, simply h\ meeting every 



572 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

bill promptly for two years, will have a cheerful credit at his 
wholesale house for five thousand dollars, although he ma}- 
not have become worth a dollar more. 

The virtues of a business man are a large share of his 
capital. Business men look more after a customer's habits 
than after his estate. They understand commerce to be 
self-regulating; that, if a trader complies with her laws, he 
will not be likely to fail; that, if he has honor, capacity and 
application, there is little need to ask after his wealth; if he 
possesses these the laws of business inake him trustworthy. 
Ever}^ year's trade \'ields him satisfactory results. No 
matter what his other virtues ma}' be, if he lacks punctuality 
he is on the road to loss of confidence and ultimate failure. 
Want of punctualit}' saps the foundation of e\'ery good bus- 
iness habit, and all the redeeming virtues of his character 
early fall into the train of the leading vice, and the man 
becomes a dawdler. Coleridge dawdled and failed. While 
Carthage hugged the delusion of her invincibility, Scipio 
destroyed her unrecruited army. And had Mark Anthony 
acted with his usual promptness to duty he would have kept 
out of Cleopatra's chamber, and the geography of nations 
would ha^■e been changed. 

A promise to perform a duty at a given hour is a bond on 
your honor. It is more than a matter of courtesy; it is a 
matter of conscience. Five minutes late on that appointment 
breaks one of the strands in the bond of confidence reposed 
in you; and with a thorough business man it will be difficult 
ever to tie that strand again. Failing to meet an engage- 
ment promptly is no light thing. Men recognize it as an in- 
dex of the character, and the fault must be quickly and well 
redeemed, or their lack of confidence will soon spread to 
what the women call dawdling. Your motto must be Hoc 



BO'SINESS HABITS. 573 

<7<re. Do instantly whatever is to be done, and take the 
hours of recreation after business, never before it. When a 
regiment is under march, the rear is often thrown into con- 
fusion because the front does not move steadil}' and without 
interruption. It is the same with business. If that which is 
first in hand is not instantly, steadily and regularly dis- 
patched, other things accumulate behind, till atlairs begin to 
press all at once, and no human brain can stand the con- 
fusion. 

Every young man starting in life should make it a rule 
never to be ahead of or behind his business. Let him 
always keep abreast of it. A man by advertising, by seek- 
ing for trade, by executing every order precisely on time, 
may have business pour in on him until he is compelled to 
enlarge his operations or be overwhelmed. This is well. 
This is crowding your business. But never let the business 
crowd you. To be behind with your engagements is much 
like arriving at the depot about as the train starts. One 
has a sorry time bustling around and getting aboard. In' 
the crowded depot of engagements there is generally such a 
rush of the behind-time men that they get greatly in one 
another's way. 

Punctuality is in a great degree a matter of habit. If the 
beginner in business will make it one of the first objects of 
his acquisition, he will have acquired a power of performing 
his duties that the dilatory men will always be amazed at. 
A habit of tardiness will cause endless trouble and vexation. 
Tardiness, once well established by habit, becomes the most 
obstinate of vices to overcome. A tardy man always 
intends to be punctual, but some unforseen thing comes 
pushing itself along, demanding just a moment's attention, 



574 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

until, in one way or another, he is always kept late, and, in 
the hands of his habit, he can not help it. 

Every successful man has a keen sense of the value of 
time. A man who is not the miser of a minute will never 
be great. Charles XII, of Sweden, would sooner have 
parted with a full corps of his little arm}- than have been 
deprived of his watch. He unsheathed his sword against 
Russia, whose generals never did know anything about time, 
and, while the Great Bear was turning round, Charles put 
her allies to the sword, and proved himself in six weeks the 
most formidable warrior on the continent. To that hour he 
had been a dissipated prince. The author of •' Getting On 
in the World " relates that Bonaparte's marshals, who had 
been in-\'ited to dine with him on a certain occasion, were 
ten minutes late. Rising to meet them, the Emperor, who 
began his dinner as the clock struck, and had finished, said: 
" Gentlemen, it is now past dinner, and we will immediately 
proceed to business," whereupon the marshals were obliged 
to spend the afternoon in planning a campaign on an empty 
stomach. It is said that the Persians lost the battle of 
jNIarathon through procrastination. They had sacked Eretria 
and carried oft" all its booty, and, having efTected a success- 
ful landing on the plain of Marathon, took a holiday before 
further action. The one hundred and ten thousand Persians 
were dressed in all the tinsel of a Sardis festival. Miltiades 
saw from the heights where he was encamped with his 
twelve thousand men, that Greece would be lost if not vic- 
torious that day. He sallied forth with his little host divided 
into three bodies, and, falling upon the Persians like a tem- 
pest of fire, routed the revelers, who fled to their ships and 
hastened from the country. 

Artists and literary men are not always able to control 



BUSINESS HABITS. 575 

their time. Artists especially have their moods, when they 
must take their brush or never. But these men who work 
only by fits and starts have an engagement with Nature at 
such hours, and must meet her then, or lose forever the 
inspiration slie is waiting to give them. Angelo, at such 
times, would work all night, wearing a taper in his cap, like 
a coal miner, to give him light. From such spasmodic 
eftbrts have come his masterpieces. Wagner, the great 
prince of music, wrote only when the spell was on him. For 
the sublime works such men execute the world is willing 
to let them break all the rules of accepted good habits; but 
it is not permitted to common men to indulge in these 
freaks. To harbor them is to encourage a course of life 
that will never accomplish any valuable work. 

Business men do not have to wait for inspiring moods. 
They are therefore expected to be at their posts on time, 
and by obeying the call of duty they will soon be filled with 
love for their work that will goad them on to their fullest 
activities. The man who is at his bench or desk during 
every minute of the business hours ; who meets every engage- 
ment promptly; who meets every bill when due; that man 
will surely win confidence and custom. 

To the business habits just considered must be added 
method and dispatch. The man who acts in harmony with 
the above precepts is not likely to fail in method. He can 
not be in the yiitl habit of all these and be immethodical. 
Nevertheless it is well to study method. Cecil, that won- 
derful dispatcher of business, sa3's: "Method is like packing 
things in a box; a good packer will get in half as much 
again as a bad one." Mr. Spurgeon, that prodigious toiler, 
tells us: " Once all I knew was rolled together confusedl}' 
as chaos. But now I have a shelf for everything, and all 



576 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

my knowledge is ticketed away, ready and unencumbered 
when I call for it." Without s}'stem he could not accomp- 
lish a tithe of what he is now doing. Experts sa}- that nine- 
tenths of the bankrupts keep their books and conduct their 
business without method. This age requires a vast amount 
of work trom a man before it will permit him to use the 
word — Success. He, therefore, who would conquer colos- 
sal results, must not spurn the stepping-stones of system. As 
well might the climber kick the rounds out of the ladder and 
persist that he could climb as rapidly by the spaces. 

But a man ma}- possess all the other qualities and fail in 
dispatch. Confessedly it is not of so great importance to 
the operator as any of the other virtues named. Yet it is 
the crowning virtue of a business character. In this age, 
where there is such a rush and scramble for the honors, 
though a man possess every other business element, he will 
be distanced if he fail in this one. Many put through busi- 
ness with great speed and seemingly accomplish very much. 
After all it has failed to amount to a great deal. They have 
a certain kind of quickness that enables them to dispose of 
matters for the present, but nothing is rounded up and fully 
completed. 

Genuine dispatch turns off its work with ease; it never 
wastes any force in sudden spurts of effort; it expedites 
business by systematic, trained, and skilled use of whatever 
is necessary, always striking at the right time and in the 
right place. It is never in a hurr\', and yet it always has its 
job off the stocks in time. It is the result of experience, 
close observation, and much pains-taking. 

A habit once formed acts spontaneous!}'. This is the 
great satisfaction in the formation of good business habits. 
A few years of assiduous training will serve to make the 



BUlSINESS U.IBJTS. 577 

dull routine of business attractive; all the train of duties will 
fall into line one after another, like soldiers at roll-call, and 
be taken up in readiness and ease, with scarce a thought. 
The very habits that are most difficult to acquire, through 
their obvious unpleasantness, will in the course of time fasten 
themselves so closely on to nature that they will be per- 
formed with the facility of instinct. 

It is well known that many who have reached the highest 
eminence in the law were disgusted with it at first. Lord 
Eldon, who turned to law under the lash of necessity, said 
that, having been obliged to sit and hear the long and dry 
arguments in the land cases of the realm, the task which 
was so burdensome at first became at last so entertaining 
that he preferred such a case to a seat at the Lord Mayor's 
banquet. Did not speech-making, at first so offensive to 
Webster, become his greatest pleasure.? Did not verse- 
making, so irksome to Cowper in his early years, become 
in time the very boon of his existence.? Oiil}' iri the joys of 
composition was he able to clear away the cloud of melan- 
choly that hung over his mind with such awful consequen- 
ces. 

Habit, we conclude, has much to do with life. On a 
few habits, thoughtlessly formed; may hang all our subse- 
quent destiny. Profoundly important is it that good habits 
be formed in early years. At that time, when the evil days 
are not, they are easily formed, and once established, they 
are a fortune of themselves. If j-ou propose to reform and 
put on new habits at thirty, it will be necessary to add to 
your resolution courage, besides all the will-power you pos- 
sess. However quiet the habit may have appeared up to 
this time, the introduction of a rival in the household is 
something like filling upon a lion. It cannot be driven from 



578 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

its lair in one combat. By patient, steady and persevering 
etTort you may conquer. Habit once grafted into the 
nature does not simpl}^ bear its own fruit, but transfuses its 
spirit into the body, and colors all the fruit on the tree of 
life. 

Some scientists affirm that the animal instinct is inherited 
experience. The Duke of Argyle has written an able essay 
to support the contrary, but is compelled to admit that the 
habits of the parents transmit a tendency to their offspring. 
The ruling habit of the life haunts the body after death. 
[Does it not attend the soul through the changeless eons?] 
Dr. Rainyer tells of a lad}', a confirmed snuff-taker, to whom 
having suddenly died, the battery was applied with faint 
hopes of resuscitating life. Her right hand fumbled for a 
moment at the dres§ belt, where she usually carried a snutf"- 
pouch, and then flew to her nose, which she " tickled," 
sniffing in a startlingly natural manner; she then gave an 
heroic sneeze, opened her e3'es, and smiled in a satisfied 
way. Then her disturbed features relaxed into their cold 
and marble form. 

Obtain all the information you can; add to this your own 
experience, and then, in your wisdom, select a "race of 
habits " which harmonize with your tastes and business, 
giving yourself wholly unto them. Paro.X3^sms of attention 
will not secure results. Steadfastl}' and unalterably let the 
driver of method, concentration, punctuality, honesty, ac- 
curacy, sobriety, and dispatch, fall in precisely the same 
way in each repeated performance, and in a few years they 
will be so wedded to nature that their action will be pleas- 
ant and spontaneous; and the final outcome thereof will be 
a successful business man. 



ufni4^ ]\m%t^5 





mm^?> vrnv^m^f- 



"Any man who desires to succeed must not only be industrious: he must 
love to be a drudge." 

'Tis all men's office to speak patience 

To those that wring under the load of sorrow. 

^JSUich Ado About Nothing. 





l.(m >.%.,. 




H! there be souls none understand; 
Like clouds, they can not touch the land, 
Drive as they may by field or town. 
Then we look wise at this and frown, 

And we Ay, " Fool," and cry, " Take hold 

Of earth, and fashion gods of gold." 

Unanchored ships, they blow and blow, 
Sail to and fro, and then go down 
In unknown seas, that none shall know, 
Without one ripple of renown: 
Poor drifting dreamers, sailing by. 
They seem to only live to die. 
>- — The Ship tn the Desert. 

These sea-blown souls are excellent subjects for poetic 
eftlisions; but this utilitarian age has little use lor men who 
drift about rudderless, ignorant of their position and the 
bearings of their destined port. It demands men who are 
ready and apt to seize the helm of action. The excuse 
made for these men is that, having lofty conceptions, they 
live in a higher atmosphere than ours, and can hardly be 
measured by our rule. B}' what rule are they to be meas- 

ss. 



582 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

ured? That they have a constant reaching after some- 
thing grand no one will wish to dispute; but they discover 
no chasm Ij'ing between conception and achie\-ement. The}' 
seem to know nothing of the means to be operated, from the 
time that desire forms until the coveted end is reached. 
They assume the end to be attainable in the next instant 
after its conception. 

When they descend to the drudger}' of working out the 
scheme; when the ignoble toil begins; when the unending 
minutiae of interests must be operated without appreciable 
results; when competitions are to be met and overcome; 
when trifles are to be dealt with like problems of life, and 
jackdaws are to be treated like princes; when common 
sense taps one on the shoulder, hinting that great results can 
never come out of such piddling; when the enthusiasm is 
beginning to die away and the mind begips to realize that 
there is a distance between conception and attainment — 
then it is these soarers turn awa}' disgusted with the con- 
cerns of earth. 

The knights of Utopia are of little practical worth in the 
engagements of life. Don Quixote thought he could make 
beautiful bird-cages and tooth-picks if his brain was not so 
full of other ideas. A scheme is useless, no matter how,? 
brilliant it may be, if it fails to operate. ji 

W. W. Linn tells an anecdote of Col. E. D. Baker, 
which, although it comes from the gambler's den, illustrates 
the rock on which his genius foundered, and on which so 
many others have gone down: "Senator Baker, at one 
time greatly given to gambling, had lost much mone}' at a 
certain faro bank in San Francisco. He sought for weeks 
for a scheme by which he could break the bank. At last 
he conceived one that would do it, and put a cool million in 



BUi>INE.:;i> DRUDGERY. 583 

his pocket. He grew so nervous in contemplation of tlie 
vast wealth he was to win that it become e\ident that he 
would not have the necessary self-control to manipulate the 
scheme. So he sought out a certain eminent lawyer, the 
lank, cool-headed Col. L., who, if necessary, could scuttle a 
ship or cut a throat and never know a tremor. The 
Colonel saw ' millions in it.' They drew ten thousand dol- 
lars apiece and started for the 'tiger.' 

" All night they pla3'ed, and sometimes lost. All day 
they played, and sometimes won. The following evening 
they ' bucked ' their last thousand, and the ferocious mon- 
ster gulped it down, then sat and smiled serenely on the 
pluck)- but penniless planners. As they pushed out into the 
dim lamplight of Bay Street, Baker said, ' Colonel, that was 
a splendid plan and it was executed just right. Why didn't 
it win? ' ' It was a most imposing plan,' replied the Colonel, 
* why it didn't succeed I don't know, but I do knoru that we 
are two of the damnedest fools in San Francisco.' " 

Another class of men fail because they will not engage in 
the details which the execution of any important work 
demands. All the interests of life hang on petty circum- 
stances. Life is made up of small things. It is hurtful to 
allow our ordinary occasions to be swallowed up by the 
extraordinary ones. If you were endeavoring to stock a 
fish pond, would you consent that the larger fish should 
devour the lesser ones.'' Does a stock-man, who must pre- 
serve an annual growth, suffer his small pigs to be trampled 
to death by the cattle.'' 

We are often ignorant of the events we think we under- 
stand. What seem to us small things are the hinges on 
which our mightiest movements turn. The size of any 
thing is no index of its importance. It is the place it fills as 



584 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

a link in a chain of circumstances, or a wall of works, that 
gives it its ^•alue. A pigeon's wing is a small and light 
affair, looked at b}- itself, but when it outstrips a locomotive 
in bearing a death-message to a friend, it becomes signifi- 
cant. 

All successful men have been noted for their attention to 
details. It has only been through a kind of omniscient vig- 
ilance over things small as well as great that they have been 
able to rise. A. T. Stewart once reproved a clerk for 
wrapping the twine around a bundle once oftener than was 
necessary. Twenty 3'ears made Bishop Butler's Analogy 
the work it is. Twenty years made Gibbon's Decline and 
Fall immortal. Forty years made Dr. Adam Clark's Com- 
mentaries the authorit}' for the Methodist Church, and fifty 
years made Kant's Metaphj'sics a success. 

. The literary works that will live through the ages were 
not dashed off in a single night. Did not Isaac Newton 
re-write his Chronology seventeen times.'' Did not Bembo 
re-write his Essays thirty times.'' Did not Moliere pass 
whole days in fixing upon a proper epithet for rh3'me.^ Did 
not Lord Macaulay bestow " incredible " labor on his Essays 
and History.'' Did not Shelle}' put his manuscript through 
such a course of criticism that, like Tasso's, they were so full 
of blots and interlineations as to be scarcely decipherable? 
Gray's Elegy took fourteen years in reaching its final revi- 
sion. These men would not let one word stand unless i' 
exactly expressed the desired thought. No drudgery of 
erasing, interlining, re-writing, and re-casting was too great. 
Their end was perfection, and filing and polishing were their 
means of attaining it. 

The author of " A Peep into Li terar}' Workshops " says: 
" Campbell was so scrupulously fastidious as to nicety of 



BUSINESS DUUDGERY. 5S5 

expression, that, in ridicule of the rareness and difficulty of 
his literary parturition, especially when the oflspring of his 
throes was poetical, one of his waggish friends used gravely 
to assert that on passing his residence when he was writing 
Theodoric, he observed that the knocker was tied up, and 
the street in front of the house covered with straw. 
Alarmed at these appearances, he gentl}' rang the bell, and 
inquired anxiousl}' after the poet's health. ' Thank you. 
Sir,' was the servant's repl)-, ' INIaster is doing as well as can 
be expected.' ' Good heavens! as well as can be expected! 
What has happened to him.? ' ' Why, sir, he was this morn- 
ing delivered of a couplet!' " 

The man whose voice can be heard on one side of every 
case in the court-room, has not won his practice b}' the 
electric force of a wish; he has won it by an immense love 
of details that has carried him into every nook of his client's 
cause, and through every must}' record, until he is better 
acquainted with the " ifs " and " ands " used during the 
quarrel than the plaintiff and defendant, and knows every 
decision for a hundred years that touches on the case. 
When Rufus Choate had a case of importance, his mar\el- 
ous powers never stopped on its general features. He 
ferreted out each slight word of testimony to know if it 
came from real knowledge; he pursued every law point that 
was against him, back to the time of its enactment, and 
sought to become acquainted with the circumstances that 
surrounded the legislators at the time. His mind dwelt 
upon it while he ate, and when the weary body caught a 
moment's sleep, the soul received inspirations concerning it. 
The minutia; lay in his mind like old wheat in the mill; it 
was to be put between the upper and nether millstones for 
the life of his client. He bound up the shreds of little things 



586 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

into a cable that could not be broken. Pale and haggard 
he went to the court-room, borne down by his infinite knowl- 
edge. He seldom lost his case. A great lawyer said: 
" Choate ought to win, for he goes through more drudgery 
for success than any man at the bar." When we see the 
unremitting toil of Brougham, the intense application of 
Webster, the patient investigation of Binne-s', the determina- 
tion of Langdale, we conclude that success in law rests 
largely in mastering details. 

" A profession " carries to many minds the idea of luxury 
and ease. " A business " carries the idea of something to 
be done. They seem to think that in " business " alone is there 
work to be done. In the wise economy of nature there is 
work everywhere. That professional inan who does not 
regard his calling as a business will ne\er make a success. 
There is no freedom from toil in an}- pursuit if \ou would 
become distinguished in it. Harriet Ilosmer, standing with 
chisel and mallet in hand over unhewn marble, has a busi- 
ness as real and as toilsome as the man who blr.sts stones 
out of the quarry. Instead of being permitted to use pow- 
der and drills and sledges to bring about results, she must 
use a hair chisel, and cut the marble by breath-blown chips, 
until its flinty face shall rival the expression of life. 

Even Angelo, who turned stone into statuary as if by 
magic, could not leave the e}-e until he had put upon it ten 
thousand strokes. Raphael spent da3's bringing to perfection 
the lips of the Madonna. The combined expression of love, 
fidelity and terror in Rizpah's face was only wrought on 
canvas from the artist's conception after months of patient 
effort. Murillo nursed the foot of his portrait, dressing it 
over and over again, long after other painters would have 
pronounced it perfect. It is this conscientious and laborious 



BUSINESS DRUDOERY. 587 

attention to details that thus distinguishes the world's 
masterpieces from its cheap performances. 

The mere love of money is not incentive enough to make 
a man thoroughly finish any work A soul-love is necessary 
to give that artistic completion which alone wins enduring 
applause. Any thing short of this, no matter how much or 
little pay there is in it, is to be characterized as mercenary 
and sordid. West sold many of his pictures at starving 
prices, yet he never slighted his pieces because they were 
humple in design. He thought only of bringing the picture 
up to an exalted standard, not of the dollars he was to get. 

Which is the orator, whose eloquence rings in the ears of 
nations for a dozen rounding centuries.'' Not he, surely, who 
depends solely on the inspiration of the audience and the 
hour to produce such magic influence! It is. the man 
that learns to breathe aright; that studies pronounciation 
and accentuation; that practices emphasis and inflec- 
tion; that studies the movement of bod}', arm, e3^e, and 
face; that trains his voice; that throws CNsery word out 
from the depth of his soul; that studies men and measures, 
that pores over authors; that translates the beauties of every 
language into his mother tongue; that sees the wrong and 
has a courage to confess it; that marks an enemy and is 
bold enough to denounce him — such are some of the quali- 
fications — such a portion of the mighty preparation under- 
gone by ^Eschines, Demosthenes, Brougham, Cla}', and 
others, before they began to accomplish results and win un- 
dying fame. 

While Cicero's rivals were spending their time in waggery, 
he was driving out the d3'spepsia with dumb-bells aqd hori- 
zontal bars, and assiduously breaking the habit of a " down- 
casteye." While the lords of the realm were snug in cozy 



588 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

beds, Pitt was studying precedents and practicing gesture. 
Calhoun's competitors at college, who spent their time in 
" society," went out to the common walks of life; he, the thin- 
■visagad recluse, went to cross lances with the knights of the 
Senate chamber. 

It has been said that genius is only a protracted patience. 
It takes this and tireless energy to operate successfully all the 
minutiee in any calling of importance. Louis XIV said: 
"Kings govern by toil." The man who falters over labori- 
ous details fails to possess one element that ever}' success- 
ful man possesses in abundance. It is not eminent talent 
that is required to insure success in any pursuit, so much as 
purpose — not merely the power to achieve, but the will to 
labor energetically, and perseveringly pursue each minor 
interest to its full completion. This will accomplish more 
than genius, and enable a man to force his way through irk- 
some drudgery and dry details to the glorious satisfaction of 
a perfect performance. Fowell Buxton, " the inaster of im- 
mense details," placed his confidence in ordinary means 
and extraordinary application. He attributed his success to 
" being a whole man to one thing at a time." " In life," said 
Ary Scheffer, " nothing bears fruit except by labor of mind 
or body. To strive and still strive — such is life; and in this 
respect mine is fulfilled; but I dare to say, with just pride, 
that nothing has ever shaken my courage. With a strong 
soul, and a noble aim, one can do what one wills, morally 
speaking." 

Napoleon's watchword was " Glory." Nelson went into 
battle with a much better one — " Duty." Glory strikes for 
general results, taking little consideration of the means, and 
will sooner or later come to ruin. Duty looks at the \'alue of 
the woi-k to be accomplished, and conscientiously perfects 



BUSINESS DRUDGERT. 589 

ever}' insignificant detail. When did the world ever see 
such a career as that of William Pitt? He took the hehii of 
England and held her prow straight to her honor and his great- 
ness, during a period of twenty-five years, surrounded by com- 
petition, jealousies, and intrigues, more powerful than ever 
existed against any former Prime Minister. We see him, 
" neglecting every thing else — careless of friends; careless of 
expenditures, so that with an income of fifty thousand dollars 
yearly, and no family, he died hopelessly in debt ; tearing up 
by the roots from his heart a lo\e most deep and tender, 
because it ran counter to his ambition; totall}' indifferent to 
posthumous fame, so that he did not take the pains to trans- 
mit to posterity a single one of his speeches; utterly insensible 
to the claims of art, literature, and beUe-leUres ; living and 
working terribly for the one sole purpose of wielding the gov- 
erning power of the nation." His soul was swallowed up by 
this one passion. 

The energies of his mighty intellect were concentrated on 
the one aim. He did nothing by halves. He knew every 
movement of the foreign powers, and was advised of the char- 
acter and habits of every officer in the empire. He knew 
the effect of every statute, the condition of every military 
post, the condition of the crops, and what legislation was 
needed for each locality. He seemed never to sleep; his 
senses were always wide awake, and he never forgot any 
thing. His knowledge so penetrated every nook of the 
nation's interest it seemed omniscient. His contemporaries 
called him a heaven-born statesman. 

One can get too deep into drudgery sometimes, like the 
old sea captain who, when there was nothing else for the 
sailors to do, put them to scrubbing the anchor. A farmer 
can get up at his da3''s work too earl}-; a merchant can re-ar- 



590 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

range and dust his goods too often; a carpenter can drive a 
nail in too far to do the most good; a speaker can change, 
amend and polish his speeches, as Canning did, until he nearly 
polishes away the original spirit — yet it is scarcely worth the 
time to drop such a hint in America. Here we have orators 
by the multitude who "run at the mouth" through every 
political campaign, but were never known to utter a new idea 
or polish an old sentence. Here carpenters do well if they 
get the nails in at all; merchants have no time to re-arrange 
and dust goods, lor planning how to sell; and farmers no 
longer get up too early, when they go on riding-plows and 
tend forty acres of corn to the man. 

But there are those who wear themselves out in a menial 
sort of way, not b}' ox^erdoing any thing that ought to be 
done, but by undertaking many more things than they 
are able to do. Details are not injurious unless the work 
itself is too great. Our peep into workshops has not prepos- 
sessed us in favor of one person having many undertakings. 
Nor are w'e convinced that they can long throw off" work 
rapidly and well. Even the varied powers of De Vinci never 
did more than one thing well. Race-horse speed at work 
is only skimming over the surface of things. Business dis- 
patch is a great attainment, but it is a failure if made at the 
cost of correctness or a waste of power. 

The Duke of Wellington had a prodigious ability for bus- 
iness affairs. As a military chieftain alone, he could never 
have won his splendid success. The vast and daring plans 
of Bonaparte would have been visionary schemes to him. 
Without a vivid imagination, without being able to look 
along extended lines of action, without any of the dashing 
qualities that signalized the campaigns of Csesar and Hanni- 
bal, he gained his triumphs by patient toil and never neglect- 



BUSINESS DRUDGERY. 591 

tng^ any thing. He trusted nothing to subordinates. Noth- 
ing was of too little iinportance for his attention, if it was 
connected .with the comfort of his men. He understood the 
commissariat of ships, muskets and men, of artillery, over- 
coats and provisions. He knew as much about the bacon 
and shoes of each corps as he did about the number of men 
he had and their arrangement for the next battle. 

We find him at Lisbon, when food was not to be obtained 
fi'om home, creating commissariat bills, and filling his mag- 
azines from the Mediterranean and South American ports. 
He did what England could not do, victualed his army, and 
the surplus he profitably sold to the needy Portuguese. He 
ordered the soldiers' shoes, showed how the low square heel 
should be made, inspected camp-kettles, smelled the flour to 
see if it was moldy, and bought horse-fodder. He issued an 
order directing the precise manner in which the soldiers 
should cook their provisions, and specified the exact speed 
at which the bullocks were to be driven. " A friend said 
to him, ' It seems to me, Duke, that your chief business in 
India was to procure rice and bullocks.' ' 'And so it was,' 
replied Wellington, ' for if I had rice and bullocks, I had 
men, and if I had men I knew I could beat the enemy.' " 

Not only did Wellington personally superintend the vast 
details which gathered about the comfort and success of his 
great army, but he also performed the full work of a states- 
man. One of his ablest dispatches to Lord Clive, concern- 
ing the government's interests and the conducting of their 
present campaign, was written while the column he com- 
manded was crossing the Toombuddra, in the face of a 
vastly superior army on the opposite bank, and while a 
thousand matters of deepest interest were pressing on his 
mind. Napier says that " it was while he was preparing to 



592 TEE GENIUS OF INBUSTBT. 

fight the battle of Salamanca that he had to expose to the 
ministers at home the futilit}- of relying upon a loan; it was 
on the heights of San Christoval, on the field of battle 
itself, that he demonstrated the absurdity- of attempting to 
establish a Portuguese bank; it was in the trenches of 
Burgos that he dissected Funchal's scheme of finance, and 
exposed the foil}' of attempting the sale of church property. 
He showed himself to be as fully posted on tliese subjects as 
with the minutest details in his arm}-." The range of his 
knowledge was as \ast and minute as the interests of the 
great people whose history he was creating. Largely owing 
to his practical talent and his extraordinary abilit\- of know- 
ing and controUing the minutest details, did he win his 
splendid victories and achieve the solitary distinction of 
never losing a battle. 

The princes in trading pursuits have won their spurs by 
ceaseless toil. The merchant who banks a million did not 
secure it by a lofty speculation, or by indifference to small 
things, but by the patient accretions of close economy ; by 
watching the clerks and the market; b}- working ofl" the 
remnants and working in the odds and ends of time; by 
close collections and prompt payments, thereby securing 
good discounts on cash ; by studying the wants of his cus- 
tomers as to thread and ribbons, ties and trinkets; b}' 
studying branches of trade carefull}", and so informing him- 
self as to what is going on and what is to be had; by 
scanning time-tables and freight-bill, and so economizing 
time, distance and dollars. Ten thousand purchases were 
made; ten thousand times goods were shown without any 
sales being secured ; and twice ten thousand seeming trifles, 
that clerks neglected, were attended to by him before he 
put that million in bank. 



BUSINESS DRUDGE ET. 593 

While others sat in easy chairs, reading the papers to 
learn what men were elected to office, and who had 
married and died, he ransacked the market tables to find an 
article a customer had inquired after. He has been clerk, 
cashier, book-keeper and bu3'er by turns; he has been over- 
reached in purchasing stocks, defrauded by assistants, 
betrayed by confidential employees, abused by his competi- 
tors, and insulted by his customers. He has been charged 
with giving short measure, selling auction goods, and being 
on the verge of bankruptcy. He has been taking stock and 
balancing up the accounts of the year, while others were at 
the seaside. He has brooded over the needs of his custom- 
ers for the next season as a physician does over the conval- 
escence of a patient. He has familiarized himself with every 
new style in the market, studied the career of every 
successful tradesman, and taken into consideration the 
causes that led to the downfall of every bankrupt. He has 
told no man of his losses, said but little about his gains, 
pocketed reverses with a smile, acted the gentleman with all 
the world, kept his wits at his fingers' end, and now he is 
rich. All his competitors shut their e3'es to his sagacit}^ 
earned by study and experience, his rigid economy and tire- 
less devotion to business, and say, " He has been surrounded 
by happy circumstances, and every thing his fingers touched 
has turned to gold." 

We come back, after a look over the field of successful 
men in these pursuits, profoundly convinced that there is no 
genuine success without great labor. For every success — 
happiness, wealth, fame — a just equivalent vcwxsX. be rendered. 
" There is a silent law," saj's Mr. Beecher, "of which men 
iire mostly unconscious, that works' incessantly in human 
affairs and infallibly determines results. It may be called 



59J: THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

the law of industrial cqui\alents. In the great strife of com- 
mercial life, the gains which men seem to make without 
having rendered for them a fair equivalent in some shape, of 
work, skill, thought, or other valuable qualit}', will not build 
them up. To do one an}- good, riches must be earned. We 
must render a fair equivalent of service for every hundred 
dollars." So in all other conditions of human effort, success 
has its price. It is a fair law of give and take. You can 
only reap as }'ou ha\'e sowed. 

In every calling the men who have attained eminence 
have been laborious toilers. A narrow mind despises 
minute particulars, and a weak intellect spurns little things. 
But men whom nature has marshaled for victory never 
think of minutiae as a trifle. Somehow, without reasoning 
why, they devote the same reverential service to the minute 
particulars that they do to the master-strokes of their 
schemes. Experience has decided that there is no royal 
road to the height of great achievement. It is only reached 
after a weary march through mud, and din, and toil. And 
it is only kept while 3'ou keep " marching on." Remember, 
therefore, if 3'ou would win, to be at your post early and 
late ; that the whole is made up of details, and that all are 
truly of equal importance. Cultivate the lofty conceptions 
of a Titian, and work like a horse. The Bishop of Exeter 
said: "Of all work that produces results, nine-tenths must 
be drudgery." 




^ ♦ 



•^U4> 





^. y. STi;^^HT- 



Seek not proud riches; but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, 
distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly; yet have no abstract or fnarly con- 
tempt of them. — Bacon. 

Never treat monev affairs with levity— money is character. — Lord l^yiton. 

Not for to hide it in a hedge. 

Nor for a train attendant. 
But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent. — Burns. 





CO]MMERCIAL life has come to be recognized as 
a game of chance, and the man who can die before 
he bankrupts is considered fortunate. The mer- 
cantile failures in our land have steadily increased for fifty 
3-ears, until the business registers are scarcely able to show 
a man who has stood unshaken for thirty years. In the 
cities, the great army of failures is being recruited to an 
alarming extent from the young business men. The 
majority of our city merchants go to the wall earl}' in life. 
Few people realize the extent to which this epidemic reaches, 
for they fall one by one, making all manner of excuses to 
keep up appearances'; or, under the assumption of changing 
business, they drop out of the channel; the great rushing 
current throws another member into the vacant place, and 
the tides of commerce roll on all the same to the world. 
But to the one that failed it is a serious matter. The little 
that he had is swept away, his energies are impaired, and 
his plans and hopes are scattered. Some one has said that 
the best temperament for a business man is a compound of 
the '' desponding and resolute; or, as I had better express 
it, of the apprehensive and the resolute. Such is the tem- 
perament of great commanders; secretly, they rely upon 



598 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

nothing and nobod}*. There is such a powerful element of 
failure in all human affairs, that a shrewd man is always 
saying to himself: ' What shall I do, if that which I count 
upon does not come out as I expect? ' This foresight dwarfs 
and crushes all but men of great resolution." 

Sagacity and resolution are absolutely demanded in the 
business man; for, manage however well he may, there are 
times when these reserve forces will be needed to save him 
from disaster. But' a large share of the disasters falling 
upon our mercantile class could be averted if the business 
man had not gi\en himself up to an overweening ambition 
to monopolize all the branches of trade. Ralston was a 
banker, a miner, a railroad builder, a speculator, and an 
entertainer. The hopeless complications of his business led 
him to suicide. There are but few Napoleons, and when- 
ever a man finds he can do one thing well, it will be well 
for him if he can be content to stand b}' that solitary thing. 
Tlie following, from one of our journals, is wholesome: 
"An acquaintance, a seed-dealer, stated that fo'- the first 
five years he could not ascertain that he made anything. 
But he was learning. Before ten years, he was clearing five 
thousand dollars per year. Another ' was doing well in 
manufacturing ropes. But he was unstable in mind, and, 
although his friends advised him to ' hang to the ropes,' he 
was not getting rich fast enough; so he meddled with busi- 
ness he had not learned sufficiently — bought a mill, bought 
grain, and then broke a bank by his large failure. Some 
farmers come to the conclusion that cows are the most 
profitable; purchase animals, erect buildings, and begin 
well. But, it being a new business, they do not succeed as 
they expected; they might, if they would stick to it. The 
next year they sell their dairy and buy sheep. The price 



A. T. STEWART. ■ 599 

of wool is low that year, and they hear that much money 
has been made by raising tobacco. Thus they go on, 
changing from one thing to another, and never succeeding 
at all. Stick to your business." 

But, by far the greatest cause of mercantile failures is a 
lack of genuine moral character in the trader. Most men 
understand their business. They are masters of it. They 
know how to conduct it in a straightforward and thorough 
manner, but they are not content to drudge along on the 
old plane of fairness and truthfulness. They want to get to 
fortune by a cross-cut. In their haste to get on they sacri- 
fice moral character and ultimate results for present success. 
It is starcely possible to paint in too high colors the artifices 
that are habitually resorted to by our tradespeople. So 
habitually are they exercised that the public have come to 
consider them as a part of business, and tradesmen have 
come to look upon them as a part of their legitimate and 
necessary capital. The success of every eminent shop- 
keeper is a standing refutation of this privileged misrepre- 
sentation of goods and business. 

We have taken A. T. Stewart as the model tradesman 
for this chapter on merchandising. In the career of this 
man, who landed in America an Irish emigrant, with a few 
hundred dollars in his pocket, and his character in his breast, 
we find exemplified the originality of aims and methods, 
economy, sagacity, honesty and truthfulness. It has been 
urged that in the career of Mr, Stewart is to be found a 
denial of the doctrine of natural predilection for some busi- 
ness. It is true that, at school, his relish was for the classics, 
and that to the close of his life he displayed a fondness for 
certain classical studies. But it is also true that Mr. Stewart 
loved his own convenience and pleasure supremely, and that 



600 ■ THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

with his large fortune he could have retired at titty and 
have pursued his favorite studies. That he did not, but 
continued to direct his vast business in person to the last 
month of his life, and then provided for the perpetuation of 
that business, is surely conclusive that, though schools may 
have afforded him a pleasant pastime yet the supreme man 
was in the business.* 

Mr. Stewart like man}- others, began business on a small 
scale, content to drudge and wait until such time as fortune 
should requite him for his toil. His motto was, " Heaven 
helps those who help themselves." We find him making 
his start in a small retail dry goods store in New York, but 
doing nothing extraordinary until he had attained his major- 
ity. He then sailed for Ireland to secure a patrimony of 
one thousand pounds, which he invested in " insertions " and 
" scollop-trimmings," bringing them to America with him on 
his return. With these notions he made his little display at 
No. 283 Broadway, making quick sales and good profits. 

We now pass over a number of arduous years, merely 
noting his tact. Then, as now, there were constant auction 
sales in the city. These he always attended. His penchant 
was for " sample lots," which he purchased and conveyed to 
his store, where, with the aid of his wife, he pressed and 
dressed them out as good as new. Then the motlc}- articles 
were classified and shelved, or hung out in the proudest ar- 
ray. As his invariable custom was to buy and sell for cash, 
he was alwa3's ready for a bargain. B}- sticking to his 
ready money principle, he was enabled to grant the very 
best terms to those who purchased of him. 

A celebrated painter says no one can draw a tree without 

*The author's failing health demanded a release from work at this pointy and Prof. Monser 
kindly came to his assistance and completed the chapter. 



A. T. STEWART. 601 

in some sense becoming a tree. Tlius was it witli A. T. 
Stewart in business. He was business personified. With 
him it was business within and business without, till it shook 
oft" Hke dust from his \-er3' tread. His eye caught ever}- 
thing. He was familiar with every detail. He went to his 
business with the constancy of a prisoner in a tread-mill. 
Time with him was a factor as valuable as to an astronomer 
in calculating an eclipse. Every moment was golden, and 
he allowed none to slip through his fingers. 

He was also the embodiment of precision. Each article 
had its place. He could go to any part of his store in the 
dark, and put his hand at once on the goods he wanted. 
One of the secrets of his success was his accurac}'. He was 
as particular in adjusting his transactions as a mathematician 
is in giving form and distance to his curves and angles. A 
place for everything, and a time for every action, was an 
economy that became security for wealth. 

He was prescient. Ever watchful of the markets, his 
keen sagacity enabled him to prepare for those trade-storms 
which sweep over country and cities with such width and 
power. It was on such an occasion that he originated that 
now almost universal custom of marking goods "at cost," 
and forcing them on the market. When hard times set in, 
many were glad to avail themselves of " Stewart's bar- 
gains." Others, less knowing and less cautious, were com- 
pelled to sell at auction, so as to obtain ready money. 
Stewart always had that ready money to spare, and by 
attending these sales, he could so supply himself as to still 
sell at cost and realize forty per cent. At one time, it is 
said,^ he purchased fifty thousand dollars worth of silks in 
this way, sold the whole lot in a few days, and realized on 
them a profit of twenty thousand dollars. 



602 TUE GAWIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Another instance of his prescience was the erection of his 
retail store. A quarter of a century since he foresaw the 
change of business to new localities, and purchased a piece 
of propert}' far awa}' up town. His friends were astonished 
at his boldness, and reasoned the case with him, but he told 
them a few years would be sufficient to vindicate his action. 
The New York sight-seer now finds A. T. Stewart's block 
in the center of one of the most thriving portions of the 
cit}-. He exhibited a great deal of shrewdness, also, in 
preparing himself for the change of affairs brought about 
by our own war. Knowing there would be a great demand 
for clothing and blankets, he bought the materials in all 
directions, making a profit of many millions in his trans- 
actions with the government, though alwa3's possessing a 
patriotism that preserved his liberality with the nation. 

He foresaw, too, that cottons would appreciate largely in 
value, and made such immense purchases as to be able 
substantially to control the market for years. His net bus- 
iness profits for the next year he returned at over four 
millions of dollars. 

It was one of his marked habits to avoid the use of other 
men's capital in building up his business. What he could 
not accomplish with his own earnings, he bravely left alone. 
Beecher says: " No blister draws sharper than interest does. 
Of all industries none is comparable to that of interest. It 
works all day and all night, in fair weather and foul. It has" 
no sound in its footsteps, but travels fast. It gnaws at a 
man's substance with invisible teeth. It binds industry with 
its film, as a fly is bound in a spider's web. Debts roll a 
man over and over, binding hand and foot, and letting him 
hang upon the fatal mesh until the long-legged interest 
devours him." We know of a city in the West in which 



A. T. 8TEWABT. 603 

business men almost the entire length of its most vigorous 
street rely on the mercies of three plethoric banks. They 
run their business on sixty-day paper almost wholly, and 
such a worry and scramble to make ends meet and win 
victory out of a defeat you never witnessed. It is said that 
"where the carcass is, there the eagles do gather." That 
Western would-be metropolis contains more administrators 
than any town we know of. 

Mr. Stewart was rigidly economical. Without this, for- 
tune is a fickle, delusive thing. Econom}" is the ground- 
work of independence; it is the parent of temperance and 
health, and the sister of thrift. Too many sing with Bishop 

Still — 

" Back and side, go bare, go bare; 
Both foot and hand go cold; 
But belly, God send thee good ale enough. 
Whether it be new or old." 
Such persons proceed upon the Epicurean maxim, "Let 
us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die," and ver- 
ify it most exactly to the end. To-morrow was the time 
Stewart hoped and expected to live. But he knew what 
must be done, and what resisted, if he would succeed. Econ- 
omy, to him, was neither an infliction nor an affliction; it was 
a necessary, but chosen, element of his being. lie looked 
upon waste as a sin; he would almost as soon ha\"e thought 
of robbing a man as of squandering his hard earnings. I lence 
he never speculated or gambled. What he expended was 
done by clear, square computations. E\-ery matter was 
weighed on the scales before it w^as engaged in; e\-er}- thing- 
was balanced, pro and contra, before it went out of his hands. 
He kept a cool head, an inflexible will, a tenacious grip on 
his business, a temperate desire, and a legitimate purpose 
ever before him. 



604 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

As he acquired means, he laid it out in substantial invest- 
ments. Without being pledged to either Say or Adam 
Smith, he was by nature and practice a political economist. 
He looked at capital and estate with the eye of a familiar. 
With Everett, he held that, without capital, " there can be 
no exercise on a large scale of the mechanic arts, no manu- 
factures, no private improvements, no public enterprises of 
utility, no domestic exchanges, and no foreign commerce." 
He thought it most imprudent to enter into any financial 
undertakings trusting to credit or money accommodations 
for the necessar}- stock. He was not like Barnum, when he 
conceived the idea of purchasing the American Museum, con- 
fessing that "silver and gold he had none — only brass." On 
the contrarv, he made no venture, excepting as he felt rooted 
down in all directions. He proposed to keep perpendicular 
to all misfortunes, if precaution could assure it. 

He never purchased " at the top of the market." The 
market must be flat and almost spleenful in its dullness if he 
gave it anv attention. It was when the waters were all re- 
ceded that he put out from shore; but then, in what triumph 
he rode in astride the returning wave ! As he made an extra 
ten or twenty thousand, he would lay it out in some portion 
of New York destined to advance in prosperity. The invest- 
ments being made from his own earnings, it mattered little 
to him how prices lagged, or how they rose or fell. Behind 
him there was no howl and no rush of a timorous and aflright- 
ened constituency. He suffered no run on his bank. Like 
any man who appreciates the gift of clear vision, he would 
only move out as he could see his wa}' ; and, as he opened up 
his track in the front he put down the brakes in the rear, 
thus controlling the speed of his machinery and securing its 
equilibrium. 



A. T. STEWART. 605 

It may be of interest tQ some of our readers to give the 
results of a day's sales at Mr. Stewart's retail house, together 
with one or two other statistical items. We therefore choose 
a sample taken from an article prepared by Mr. James D. 
Mill, himself a New York merchant: 

" The accounts of each department are kept separately, 
and the sales of each day constitute a separate return. These 
sales will average soinething like the following figures: 

Silks, $15,000 

Dress goods, - . . . 6,000 

Muslins, . . . - - 3,000 

Laces, ....-- 2,000 

Shawls, ..... 2,500 

Suits ...-.- 1,000 

Calicoes, ..... 1,500 

Velvets, - - - - - 2,000 

Gloves, ..... 1,000 

Furs, ...... 1,000 

Hosiery, ..... 600 

Boys' clothing, . . ... yoo 

Notions, ..... 600 

Embroideries, .... 1,000 

Carpets, - . . . . 5,500 

" The total daily receipts average $60,000, and have been 
known to amount to $87,000. The employes' book in the 
retail house contains upwards of 2,200 names. Salaries of 
subordinate clerks range from $5 to $25 per week, and cash- 
boys receive $5 per week." 

As Mr. Stewart was an originator of many methods and 
tacts in trade, so he may be pronounced a commercial 
reformer in his principles. He mixed the fire of the moral 
sentiments with the cold and heartless tendencies of business. 
He cultivated an unwillingness to violate character with such 
persistence that he became an example to others. 



606 THE GENIU8 OP INDUSTRY. 

Slowly, like the cleansing of ^ lazar-house, did he renew 
and reconstruct the habits of those within the scope of his 
influence. And yet it was these characteristics which, to 
many merchants, made his life a cunning m3-stery and a rock 
of otfense. Snares and bribes were set for him b}' the crafty 
ones, but he was neither to be entrapped nor bought. Oppo- 
sition was set on foot to put him to the rout, but it was as 
futile as it was venomous. His breast was always open to 
honorable inquiry. He was ready to reason with his oppo- 
nents as to the wisdom of his career. But he was too firin 
and too faithful to his own interests and the interests of 
mankind to yield one jot or tittle. 

He put forth his goods to all at honest selling prices, but 
he never fell. This was contrary to his conception of honor. 
He held that all customers should be treated alike. It was 
contemptible, in his opinion, to hear men saying, " Well, see- 
ing it's you, I'll take so and so; but don't say anything about 
it! " This, to him, was either hypocrisy or treacher}^ and 
he despised both. What he held as an individual duty, he 
enforced upon his clerks. The common habits of misrepre- 
senting goods — denying them when returned on account of 
flaws — and l3'ing as regarded cost or qualit}-, he would not 
brook for an instant. He held that no business could thrive 
upon such a course, and for him there were good mercantile, 
as well as moral, reasons for putting his veto upon it. In 
such cases, he would take the clerk aside and reason the mat- 
ter with him, showing that, by such conduct, customers 
would become suspicious and distrustful, and eventually for- 
sake the establishment. In more than one instance, the self- 
conceit of the clerk so far got the mastery that he packed up 
his traps and left, seeking a shop where " his proprietor would 
not be ruined by such whims and crochets." 



.•1. T. STEWART. 607 

Honesty, with hiirij was the best poHcy. He knew the 
constant temptation hovering over a man in daily, business. 
He not only dreaded detection and disgrace — he had a sense 
of the value of reputation. Hence he could not share in 
that conventional and dubious morality that obtained all 
about him. He saw that the margin which separates right 
and wrong was remorselessly trodden under foot by minute 
and repeated encroachments. He could bear with the lesser 
liberties of his employes so long as he felt them to be 
harmless; but when he discovered them crossing the line of 
rectitude he became indignant. With him justice was jus- 
tice. He saw that every thing tilts and rocks which is not 
founded on just principles. There were honest opportuni- 
ties to make money without defrauding purchasers. He 
could not bear to have them face to face with him, pouring 
forth their upbraidings. He could not bear the whisperings 
of his own conscience if it informed him of one iota that 
was unfair between him and his fellow-men. His moral 
sense told him it was unmanly. 

Honest with his customers, he was also honest with his 
clerks. It was his aim to make them feel that the}' were all 
necessary parts of the firm. While he required the closest 
attention to business during business hours, he did not act as 
though the wages he paid them gave him right and title to 
their souls. He knew human nature too well to provoke it 
to extremes of any sort. He well understood that the best 
bow must, at times, be unstrung, or else it loses its elasticity 
and force; so he was rather disposed to take the extra labor 
on himself than impose it upon those under him. 

Next to honesty, with Mr. Stewart, was courtesy in busi- 
ness. This was ever in his mind in the selection of his 
clerks. He sought for every quality of character that tends 



■608 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

to secure this. Parentage, breeding, opportunit}-, all cut a 
figure with him. He held that there is something in " blood." 
Some persons, by birth, are "nature's noblemen," while 
others are boors to begin with, and to the end, despite 
father, mother, schooling, society, or city. He did not like 
to see one of his employes whittling a stick, or smoking a 
pipe or cigar like a hackman; nor would he endure it. 
There must be taste in manners and toilet, and grace and 
dignity in mien. Above all else, he would suffer no self-sat- 
isfied smirks or foppery in the presence of ladies. There 
must be no partialities; no superciliousness to those clad in 
cheap attire. Any one who stepped inside his store, poor or 
rich, was assured of the most decorous treatment. There 
could be no impertinences shown such as were ignorant of 
the ways of trade or the amenities of society. He w\as 
debtor to all sorts of people in his dealings and accommoda- 
tions. He would not have his clerks too servile or fawning, 
nor would he permit them to be abrupt. If, after much 
kind remark and training, a candidate for his favor failed to 
adopt the golden mean, he must try his fortune as a sales- 
man elsewhere. Of all he required patience to meet a cus- 
tomer's desires and fathom his needs. 

No one can deny that Mr. Stewart loved money, and 
loved to make it. It was for him, as for many more, a pro- 
fession. He became absorbed in it upon the same principle 
a poet becomes absorbed in poetr}', or an artist in sculpture. 
He had his way to make in the world with the rest of man- 
kind, and the choice he made harmonized most with his 
taste and abilities. But Mammon was not exclusively the 
god of his affections. If money-making was with him a 
propensity; if it employed his activities or heightened his 
joy; if it opened up for him avenues of operation, secured 



A. T. STEWART. 609 

that power that is found in a wealth of repose, or gave him 
a rare notoriety — it was always kept subordinate to an 
unimpeachable manhood. Some men, as they become 
affluent, grow heartless. The train of their thoughts is 
indissolubly linked to selfish increase; they are afflicted by 
the cravings of an unsated appetite; they lose all sense of 
soul, save as a commodity of traffic; and the estimate they 
place on the public is proportioned to the extent of their 
hopes in exhausting them of their possessions. An impal- 
pable veil conceals from their eyes all objects of human 
compassion, and they are strangers to charity. 

Such, however, was not the case with A. T. Stewart. 
Like Peabod}-, he made princely donations. He acknowl- 
edged his obligations to those who had made it possible for 
him to attain his position. He loved his fatherland like a 
true son of Erin, and, when it was desolated by famine, was 
among the first to render it solid aid. The country of his 
adoption also found a share in his liberalit}-. His treasury 
was ever open to the Union during the war. He had a firm 
faith in American securitie9, and took with pleasure his 
nation's obligations. When the proud and magnificent city 
of the lake shore was humbled to ashes, he sent fifty thous- 
and dollars to the sufferers. But he had a repugnance to 
the ostentation so common to public charities ; his benefac- 
tions were given quietly. 

He conducted business on business principles, and not on 
sentimental. It is said that on a certain occasion Astor had 
some transactions with a church trustee, who was eager to 
obtain a reduction of price for his people. "No!" said 
Astor, " business is business, and I shall charge you just the 
same as any one else." The trustee reasoned and persisted, 
but Astor stood firm, and so the transaction terminated. 



610 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Instantly he filled out a draft for a thousand dollars, and, 
handing it to the trustee, said: " I shall be happy to con- 
tribute my mite now to your undertaking." 

Some feeling of this sort pervaded Stewart also. He 
deprecated that system of dead-heading and begging so fre- 
quently practiced by extravagant aspirants for church 
architecture. With him, churches ought to conduct their 
business on as strictly independent principles as banks or 
other mercantile corporations. He saw no reason why men 
of immense wealth in various denominational connections 
should so draw the line between what they owned and what 
belonged to God as to put their pittance in the Master's 
treasury and the lion's share in their own. If they were 
really what they professed, let them show it by their 
actions. 

We are not so to be construed, in this last paragraph, as 
to reflect on proper pleas for religious help, or on Mr. 
Stewart's regard for such. He was not callous to the Gospel 
claim, nor was he averse to reciprocity. No man appre- 
ciated benefactions or support more than he. It was neither 
in his nature nor his wisdom to isolate himself from the 
sympathy and respect of society. He honored that maxim, 
"Live and let live." He believed in doing unto others as 
he would be done by; but he cAme to human beings with 
moderate expectations, and he liked to be so approached. 
He had a keen sense of equity; he could not concur in many 
of the self aggrandizing schemes presented for his considera- 
tion. While the claimant affected to satisfy himself with 
the mere edgings of the wealthy, he knew that he was as 
quick to grind the faces of the poor. Often he had remarked 
that the proceeds passed into the hands of stalled dignit}- or 
else became the occasion of greedy strife. 



A. T. STEWART. 611 

Moreover, he possessed one of those extra tones of judg- 
ment so necessary to welcome and support a business career. 
To him it was no charit}' to bestow goods on the gourmand 
or professional beggar. If he reserved his benefits from 
such applications it was only that he might not be stripped 
of power in a season when he felt he must render assistance. 
But, although he had the courage to refuse the unjustly 
importunate, he was never surly; he was simply determinate. 
He did not resist and resent as the habit of his life; nor did 
he, like some, give twenty-five cents to ever}' person and 
every thing that came along. Into his charities, as much as 
elsewhere, he carried his originality of method. He ne\er 
became jealous of his fortune; nor did he sit among his 
bags and die of utter want. He had views, and he proposed 
to maintain them. Let whoever else would be unreasonable, 
he would be reasonable; let whoever might find fault, he 
would exercise discretion and acquit his conscience. 

He had learned the fact that the receiver could be ungen- 
erous as well as the giver. With his quick eve he read that 
man who, having obtained one benefit, took advantage of 
the fact, and, with an inflamed rapacity, knocked anew at 
his door. Harpies were his abhorrence; he saw with regret 
that they exhausted the benevolence of a community, draw- 
ing helping hands aside to their exclusive benefit. He saw 
that they preyed upon the compassionate principles of our 
human nature; and, for the very love he bore the needy, he 
resolutel}' refused to open his hand or his heart to thein. 
To our thinking, he has given a beautiful expression of this 
among the latest acts of his life, in the handsome block he 
has reared for the benefit of the workingwomen of New 
York Cit}'. Like a man we know of in Illinois, who per- 
mitted himself to be misunderstood for 3-ears, in order that 



612 



THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 



he might gather his little all together and erect a church in 
his community with his own hands, so Stewart has passed 
by much, that he might give his strength to more worthy 
and more enduring works of charity. 








'% 



<d 



'P kk<3 








g^I^F-HJll^l^J^f^. 



Man is his own star; and the soul that can 
Render an honest and a perfect man, 
Comnnands all light, all influence, all fate: 
Nothing to him falls early or too late. 
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill. 
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. 

— Honest Mali's Fortune. 

Trust thvself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. — Emerson. 

" Our motive power is always found in what we lack." 




ly^lf-l^dfeM^. 




T has come to be universally believed that self- 
reliance is the master key that unlocks all the diffi- 
culties arising along one's path. But like the locks 
of private mail boxes, the intricacies of each forbid entrance 
to all keys but one. Every person then must solve his own 
problems. Individuality is the primer nature first puts into 
the hand, and peculiarity is one of her first stepping-stones 
to an enviable destin}'- A human being who simpi}' repeats 
another is of little moment. Base imitations are bad things. 
We bring away that which injures more easily than we do 
that which helps. Even in the best estate, repetitions 
become flat and monotonous, and an excess of proclamation 
is attended with mere pomp and sound. A man who would 
get on in the world can afix)rd to confess this. There is no 
such thing as suiting your strokes to every echo, nor your 
steps to every footprint. Neither if you proceed at your 
option and as wisely as you know how, will every one 
accord with your conceptions of propriety. Are you then 
to tarry and mourn over the world's conservatism.? Is life 
to be to you a mere enslavement to effete customs? Emer- 
son says, " Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. 
He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered 

615 



616 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be good- 
ness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your 
own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and 30U shall have 
the sufirage of the world. I remember an answer which, 
when quite young, I was prompted to make to a valued 
adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old 
doctrines of the church. On my saying, ' What have I to 
do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from 
within .'' ' my friend suggested : ' But these impulses may 
be from below, not from above.' I replied: ' They do not 
seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will 
live, then, from the devil.' " I quote this because it seeks 
to lift every man on to the vantage ground of reverence for 
self. A man is to carry himself when alone, and when in 
the presence of all the world, as if ever}- thing were titular 
and ephemeral but himself. The man does not live who 
can afford to have the self consciousness of his worth struck 
out of his mind. 

Who does not know one or more men of large acquire- 
ments and rich culture whose splendid parts are all wither- 
ing for lack of use. ^ The cause of this is want of self- 
confidence. They see things they would like to do, and are 
conscious their attainments have thoroughly prepared them 
for it, but they have not courage enough to trust themselves. 
If selfreliance could be reduced to conic sections, and a 
treatise placed in our schools, to be taught as astronomy 
and physiolog}' are, there might be some hope that by the 
next generation or two, self-reliant m^n would be grown. 
But could such a novelty ever occur, what a depletion should 
we witness in the ranks of those who annually flock to Long 
Branch, Saratoga, and Europe! Let us not speculate so 
freely. Self-reliance, after all, is not a thing to be bought 



SELF-RELIANCE. 617 

by the yard or measured off like tape. In a large sense it 
is God-given, but like the apocalyptic candlestick, its crim- 
inal disuse justifies its removal. Many persons come into 
the world with smallness of gift, as it respects this. But 
the exercise of what little is owned is so limited, no benefits 
accrue. They seem never to have known what it was to 
wield the sinewy arm and possess the iron heart. They are 
pendants, fastening, like barnacles to a ship, on some one 
stronger and more executive than themselves. Instead of 
grappling with fate, the}' tamel}' submit to be drawn on b}' 
what they deem the best management. They may have 
plans and purposes enough, but, if so, they lack that cohesive 
power which knits things together, and, worse than all, 
moral solvency. Time was when, inconsiderable as were 
their parts, they were their own; and, to say the least, a 
seed is not so small as to justify negligence in planting, 
watering and attention. Now their garden is adorned with 
neither indigenous nor exotic plants. 

For a man to attempt any considerable task without self- 
reliance, is about as wise as for a carpenter to commence 
a roof without a ridge-pole. This essential quality is the 
tap-root of the tree of life. Cut it, and instantly the foliage 
dies and drops; succor it, and new, umbrageous boughs are 
sent forth. But self reliance does not imply that one can 
derive no benefit from foreign help; it rather implies that 
one does. No one can successfully deny the fact of his 
babyhood. What would a tree be if it were forbidden to 
replenish its juices from the agencies beneath and about it ? 
Would it ever have been, had it not? And yet as to resist- 
ing storms, or in any wise making its wa}' in the forest, and 
holding its own territory, it must depend upon its own forces. 
The sun maj^ shine, the atmosphere may heap itself about 



618 THE GENIUS OF IN DUST RT. 

in strata, rains may fall, and the earth be full of nourishment., 
but if the tree reach not out to seize the good that is in 
them, it will perish as though they had not been. Na}*, if 
it fail of one, it fails of all; for the chain upon which success 
depends is no stronger than its weakest link. 

So it is with man. Let him, to begin with, be well 
grounded. He finds himself in the midst of an armory of 
implements. Let him take Saul's armor if he can wear it,, 
and Saul's spear if he can wield it; if not, let him have sense 
enough to know it, and then choose a sling and a stone tO' 
slay his giant. He has a heritage in the wealth of thought 
and deed that has come down to him from Adam; |et him 
enrich himself with the counsels and the example of all who 
are worthy to give him an uplift. But let this be done not 
with feebleness of purpose, nor emasculation of power. Let 
even the selection of help be made with that independent tact 
that shall show vigor and rigor of will. One must have 
foundations, but quany and lay the ashlar yourself, one must 
find scaffold timber somewhere, but keep it out of the house. 
One must have stepping-stones in life, but use them to pass 
up on, and out in the great beyond of action and art. This 
gives the world the very ripest, broadest manhood possible- 
Every one and everything is conserved for a further and a 
better service. Each succeeding generation thus becomes 
debtor to the past, and an improvement upon it; and the 
thought or the act is his who sa3-s or does it last and best. 
We ha\e felt it necessary to say this because of some cant 
abroad about plagiarism and that sort of thing. We do not 
wish our readers so intimidated as to decline necessary help. 
We have no sympathy with the mental development which 
results from ultra-mental independence. The world needs 
to be freed from this over-individuality; and yet we are not 



SELF-RELIANCE. 619 

indifferent to the injury that must accrue should our teach- 
ing be misapplied. On this point, then, we intend being- 
quite exphcit. There is this difference between corner- 
stones and crutclies ; on one you build, on the other you lean. 
Erected on the one is that which is constantly taking expan- 
sion and greater beauty of form; erected on the other is 
that which daily dwindles. While, therefore, we heartily 
urge that which is written, we as pointedly denounce a dispo- 
sition upon the part of the young to fi}' to some father, 
mother or friend, on the most trivial occasions, for help. 
We know of no surer way to prostrate and paral3'ze the 
energies than this. Not thus are men built. Nature never 
gives a hardy growth after this fashion; the mightiest trees 
are those that stand apart. Let the young do some think- 
ing for themselves. Do not organize their plans; do not 
make their investments; do not render their decisions; do 
not bolster them up thus. They cannot always be tied to 
one's apron-strings. To their own master they must stand 
or fall. If you would have them good for anything, let 
them pass through their crisis alone. What is more deplor- 
able in life, if it were not laughable, then to see one of these 
molluscous creatures looking about for some parental shell 
to creep into.^ Hitherto, in such a time of, to him, moment- 
ous exigency, some friend was at hand to lend a help; now 
he looks round for his prop in vain. For an instant or two 
he manages to preserve his equilibrium, and then over he 
topples, looking as helpless to the b3'standers as a capsized 
turtle. 

If there was no other reason for being more independent, 
the fact that every one has all he can do to attend to his 
own concerns, is a potent one. When we cut loose from 
the old homestead, we are on a search for the philosopher's 



620 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

stone, if we suppose we shall find people who have so deep 
an interest in us as to carry us through the world on their 
shoulders. A severance of self from every one else, and a 
gathering up of all the forces under our command, that we 
may individualize them, is one of the first steps to success. 
The world has no use for boobies. It is not going to turn 
aside for 3'ou until you compel it to, and this you will never 
do without irresistible vim. 

Only less effective than undue dependence upon parents 
and friends in producing dolts, if not worse, is being tamp- 
ered with by them. Why should my father relieve me of 
my responsibility by constantly managing my affairs for me.? 
Had he not a father once.'' Why be so solicitous.'' Are not 
a good example and precepts sufficient without molding a 
3'oung man like bricks or dough.'' Let there be freedom of 
thought, room to purpose, and independent opinions in your 
son if 3-ou would have him honor your name. A late mer- 
chant said that not until he was fifty 3'ears of age was he 
able fully to overcome the distrust of himself that an over- 
solicitous parent had trained him in up to his twenty-fifth j-ear. 
Till then his father held control of the business, treating 
him and his efforts as though they were not trustworthy. 
The result was that it took him a quarter of a century longer 
to accomplish what he desired than it would if he had been 
allowed opportunity to exercise his originalit}'. 

We can not counsel irreverence to parents. But we as 
much dislike tjTannizing over child-nature. If, then, 3'ou are 
so unfortunatel3' situated, endure it with as good a grace as 
possible, using what chance hours 3'ou can find to give 3'our 
nature vent. Upon entering life for 3'ourself resolve to play 
second fiddle to no man. Conceive and execute for 3'ourself 
if possible, and it is possible. If a clerk, stud3' out wa3's and 



SELF.RELI^INCE. 621 

means for exhibiting and selling goods, rel3nng on your own 
judgment to teach you how. One stout soul with a resolu- 
tion to work its own way through the world after the pattern 
of its own high ideal, is of real significance in life and may 
safely defy failure. Some where, and at some time, you 
must be courageous enough to rest upon your own judgment, 
and the sooner 3'ou do so the better it will be for you. Self- 
reliance is like capital in business ; the more one has of it the 
greater his facilities for increase. Yet with a meager begin- 
ning one may by good economy occasionally overcome want 
of capital and still prosper. Lord Nelson recognized the fact 
that in lack of self-reliance lay his obstacle to preferment. 
Even in his advanced years he would roll sleeplessly over in 
his berth all night, fearing he would not be able to meet the 
demands of the morrow. Yet by long training and wise 
preparation, combined with unwearied attention to details he 
brought himself to plan and conduct naval battles, the equals 
of which have never since been claimed by English fleets. 

A lofty self-respect must be associated with self-reliance, 
" The youth," sa3's Disraeli, " who does not look up will look 
down; and the spirit that does not soar is destined, perhaps,. 
to grovel." Martin Luther dared to face the frown of the 
religious and political powers of the earth. His action ap- 
peared unwise and reckless, but it was far from it. A 
supreme confidence that he was advocating the truth, and 
that he was able to maintain it, were the simple and sole 
moti\-cs that drove him single-handed into that awful con- 
flict. Jenner faced shame and ridicule when he proclaimed 
the value of vaccination. Though it seemed foolish to the 
people, he contined stoutly to affirm it, and brought the col- 
leges to his feet. On the same principle did Jackson meet 
the National Bank Bill, and did Bonaparte say, "There shalL 



622 TEE OENIUS OF INBUHTMY. 

be no Alps." It may not at all times be right, but it is the 
conviction of a soul that -will think and dares to do. 

Business is being flooded with men who mistake reckless- 
ness for self-reliance. The occasional success that crowns 
their ventures is heralded over the land, and becomes an 
incentive to the mass to be governed by the same principles 
of action. The man who risks his last dollar on a wheat 
speculation; who stakes his fortune on a single throw of the 
dice; the merchant who invests a fabulous sum in the fash- 
ions of this fall, or credits his customers to the extent of his 
invested capital; a general who risks a battle with half his 
army when he could as well have every corps in action; or 
the captain who puts to sea with half enough coal for his \oy- 
age, trusting to lucky winds to blow him through — may be 
plucky, but they lack wisdom. Self-reliance uncontrolled by 
wisdom is as a vessel without a pilot. 

Again, one may have an over-faith in himself. There is 
many a village lawyer who saw how he could have bettered 
Evart's defense of Beecher; many a young lire captain saw 
how he could have snatched burning Chicago out of the 
flames; man}- a merchant sees how he could run A. T Stew- 
art's business better than Judge Hilton; inany a cross-roads 
newspaper editor comments on the failure of the Times. 
Every embryonic statesman can point you out the fallacies in 
Clay, where Webster missed it, and the deplorable failure of 
Calhoun. There may be a tinge of truth in all this. It is 
eas}^ tp see partial failures after they have been magnified by 
shrewd opponents. The man with this kind of faith in him- 
self is not likely to study the steps by which these eminent 
actors have succeeded ; and by going into a contest with a keen 
e^'e to avoid failures, he finds he has failed to master those 
things that make for ^•ictory. Self-reliance gives its great 



SELF-RELIANCE. 623 

attention to the things to be done in order to succeed, and 
not the things to be avoided. That self-sufficiency that can 
coolly criticise our betters is not exactly the lever that upsets 
the world. To be sure, one should have great faith in his 
correctness ; but underlying this should be a clear knowledge 
of the validity of the testimony on which this correctness is 
based. That self-reliance that sees a desired end, and deter- 
mines to reach it at whatever hazard to men or to morals, 
and however contrary to the best judgments, may be deemed 
by some valuable, but its virtue is neutralized by its licentious- 
ness. 

Without a doubt, there needs to be much of the " infalli- 
ble feeling " in every thing you do. It must approach the 
subject from the proper angle. Your worth as a critic on 
other men's actions will avail little when acting for yourself. 
You need to come to that labor with the soul charged with 
self confidence, never letting it suspect that promise outruns 
performance. No man ever yet approached a thing he was 
able to perform with over-confidence. He must approach it 
with a confidence that sets aside mere criticism, without a 
single thought concerning failure, but with the clear under- 
standing that he can do that work, for he knows hotv. 
Emerson sets forth the thought in the following happy way: 
" Each 3^oung and ardent person writes a diary, in which, 
when the hours of prayer and penitence arrive, he inscribes 
his soul. The pages thus written are to him burning and 
fragrant; he reads them on his knees by midnight and by 
the morning star; he wets them with his tears. They are 
sacred — too good for the world, and hardly yet to be shown 
to the dearest friend. This is the man-child that is born 
to the soul, and her life still circulates in the babe. The 
umbilical cord has not yet been cut. After some time has 



624 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

elapsed he begins to wish to admit his friend to this hallowed 
experience, and with hesitation, yet with firmness, exposes 
the pages to his eye. Will they not burn his eyes? The 
friend coldly turns them over, and passes from the writing 
to conversation with easy transition, which strikes the other 
party with astonishment and vexation. He can not suspect 
the writing itself. Days and nights of fervid life, of com- 
munication with angels of darkness and of light, have 
engraved their shadowy characters on that tear-stained book. 
He suspects the intelligence or the heart of his friend. Is 
there no friend.? He can not yet credit that one may have 
impressive experience, and yet may not know how to put 
his private fact into literature; and perhaps the discovery 
that wisdom has other tongues and ministers than we — that 
though we should hold our peace the truth would not the 
less be spoken — might check injuriously the flames of our 
zeal. A man can only speak so long as he does not 
feel his speech to be partial and inadequate. It is partial, 
but he does not see it to be so while he utters it. As soon 
as he is released from the instinctive and particular, and 
suspects its partialit}', he shuts his mouth in disgust. For 
no man can write any thing well, who does not think that 
what he writes is, for the time, the history of the world, or 
do any thing well, who does not esteem his work to be of 
importance. My work may be of none, but I must not 
think it of none, or I shall not do it with impunity." 

A chattering conceit is not self-trust. The two are wide 
asunder as the poles. No man will ever palm conceit oft' on 
himself for real force of character. If he attempt to palm 
it on to others, the chimney-sweeps and bootblacks will 
laugh at his folly. Nothing will ever avail a man's self for 
himself but that which is within himself The man who 



SELF-RELIANCE. 625 

speaks from within knows himself, and the world soon 
knows him. If he put something on to himself, and speak 
and act from it, he feels that the clothes do not fit, and the 
world sees they were never made for him. Pampering and 
polishing a little self-pride until it becomes a monstrous self- 
conceit, enables a man to strut, and vaunt, and parade, but 
it never blinds the world, nor gives him strength to perform 
a heroic deed. 

Conceit was once mistaken for courage, in those days 
called chivalrous. It built palaces that bankrupted the citi- 
zens of a province. It marshaled the Crusaders, and 
murdered millions of men and children. It gave to con- 
querors the idea that might makes right, and caused kings 
to proclaim worship to themselves as to gods. But Cer- 
vantes extinguished it with a romance. He sent the plumed 
Don Quixote through its mailed sides, and it only makes its 
appearance since in the shape of men who seem but can not 
be. There was no conceit in the Alexander that conquered, 
in the Columbus that discovered, in the Washington that 
withstood. 

There is a power in selftrust that gives one a potency 
and influence be^'ond all his other natural abilities. Let 
some uncouth person suddenly appear in a cultured com- 
munity and raise his voice against established abuses — the 
betrayal of confidence in society, or the prevalent misrepre- 
sentations of the trades-people — drawing the public mind to 
his judgment-seat and condemning it. His incoherent and 
irrational speech may excite ridicule for a day, but very 
soon the Emersons and Carlyles come and sit at his feet. 
The man who gives fearless utterance to his whole convic- 
tions will commend himself to the judgment of all unbiased 
people. The same principle that urges one into the breach 



626 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

of a great reformation or to speak his faith in the face of 
raging opposition will lead him to choose words which, how- 
ever inelegant, are always strong and aggressive. In the 
da3's of the Terror, Lannes spoke with more impunity than 
an}- man in Paris, and yet at Lodi he was the man who 
sprang in front of Bonaparte leading the French across the 
bridge. After the bridge was crossed Lannes " spurred his 
maddened horse into the very midst of the Austrian ranks," 
says Abbott, " and grasped a banner. At that moment his 
horse fell dead beneath him, and half a dozen swords glit- 
tered above his head. With herculean strength and agility 
he extricated himself from his fallen steed, leaped upon the 
horse of an Austrian officer behind the rider, plunged his 
sword through the body of the officer, and hurled him from 
his saddle; taking his seat, he fought his way back to his 
followers, hax'ing slain in the melee six of the Austrians with 
his own hand." 

Bravado is not self-trust. It is trying to get other people 
to trust you. When Louis of France said, " I am the 
State," he sought to impress the grandeur of himself, but it 
was an unconscious confession of his weakness. And yet how 
many a man gets on his high-heeled shoes, puts a feather 
in his hat, and tries to make believe he is a real actor. 
George Eliot says that " Man can do nothing without the 
make-believe of a beginning." There is a certain amount 
of make-believe in ever)' thing one does, but it is not a mere 
make-believe to the man of genuine self-reliance. He will 
do all that he avows to do. It is bravado, or seems to be, 
in the eyes of others. With him it is true that 

" Man alone 
Can perform the impossible." 

That general who pitched his camp on an eminence over- 



SELF-SEIIANCE. (J2T 

looking his vastly superior foe, and all night long marched 
his little band in front of his fires and then encircled them in 
the darkness beyond the brow of the hill, bringing them 
round by the same path again — whom the enem}', seeing, 
thought to be a ceaseless inpouring of reinforcements and 
retired at daybreak in terror — exhibited the pure kind of 
self-trust. When Duke George threatened the life of Luther 
if he appeared at Worms, a friend warned the reformer, but 
Me said, " I will go there though for nine whole da3's running 
it rained Duke Georges!" when Catharine Douglas, to 
give James II an opportunity to escape from the conspirators, 
rushed to the door to adjust the great iron bar, and finding 
it gone, flung herself against the door and put her arm into the 
bar-socket, and held it there, until being broken, it yielded, 
and the mob rushed over her fainting body; when Latimer 
burned first the hand that signed his recantation; when 
Bruno told the Judges of the Inquisition, after they had con- 
demned him to die, "You are more afraid to pronounce my 
sentence than I am to receive it;" when Charles Sumner told 
Brown-Sequard not to administer narcotics if it lessened the 
curati\"e powers a single degree, but to apply the red-hot 
irons to his spine — it was not bravado; it was a supreme 
self-trust. 

Boasting is seldom the wont of self-reliance. Men pos- 
sessing self-confidence in a commanding degree are only 
given to its assertion when there is manifest need. The 
sagacious statesman and intrepid warrior, William the 
Silent, was not called silent because he seldom spoke, but 
for restraining every emotion when the French King laid 
before him the plot to exterminate those " accursed vermin," 
the Protestants. Incautious talking seems to make this 
virtue vapor}^ Our great generals are silent men, after the 



62S THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

order of William. Our great writers are silent men, after 
the order of Shakspeare, who let so little be known of him- 
self in connection with his works that many have questioned 
his authorship. Our greatest statesmen are silent, like the 
younger Pitt, who let so little be known of himself that his 
biographer was forced to gather from his servants and 
friends the story of his life. Of his thousand speeches not 
one had he preserved. Our greatest financiers are silent, 
like Vanderbilt, who controlled more interests than any 
man on Wall street, and yet was never seen on 'Change. 
Our greatest business men are silent, like P. T. Barnum, 
who says, "Be friendly with your friends, and coin'tly to all, 
but keep }our own counsels, and rely on yourself as able 
to attend to 3"our own business." 

Ambition is a necessary adjunct to self reliance; yet am- 
bition must not be mistaken for self-reliance. It is a quality 
common to all men. Statesmen, commanders and kings 
have no monopoly of this article; the Digger Indian, the 
bootblack and roustabout on the steamboat possess it also. 
The possession of it is torture to the cowardly soul, while to 
the selfdependant man it becomes a joyful driving wheel to 
action. The inner soul of every schoolboy has dreams of 
place and power; the unlettered swain fancies a coming 
exaltation in the world; the pilfering waif that huddles in 
an alley from the storm, thinks on coming fame ; the galley- 
slave has visions of command flitting over his mind. So the 
great mass of men hold burning desires for lofty places, but 
never rise above the dead level of the common lile. ^'Esop 
was once a slave, but he felt that he was greater than his 
master, and steadily undertook what his conscious power told 
him he could do. ladmon felt that he was too great for 
chains, and sent him from bondage to the court of Crcesus. 



SELF-RELIANCE. 629 

And the just world will send every man to court, whose 
determinatiorf equals his ambition. Recently when Fred 
Douglass visited his old master, Auld, and the once master 
and slave talked and wept like brothers who had been 
long separated; Mr. Auld said he always felt that Douglass 
could never be retained in slavery, and intended to give him 
his freedom at some time. Distrust of self is holding more 
men in bondage to-day than any nation's code of slavery. 

It is not a Charles Sumner, of an old Boston famil}', reared 
in the Hub of intelligence; nor a Randolph surrounded by 
adventitious circumstances; nor a John Stuart Mill, the one 
pupil of a talented father, who alone become distinguished 
in our times. Abraham Lincoln was a rail-splitter, Henry 
Wilson a shoemaker, Salmon P. Chase a farmer boy; with 
no one to trust but themselves, they conquered destin}-, and 
went to the head of their nation and party. The life of 
Frederick Douglass affords a thrilling illustration of what de- 
termined self-reliance may do, for he had as far to climb to 
get to the spot where the poorest free white boy is born as 
that boy has to climb to be President of the nation. Nine 
out of ten of the college-educated young men would shud- 
der and shrink from the resolution to become one of the tirst 
orators of the land; and yet Douglass holds such a position 
and, in reaching it, fought his way from slavery and a name- 
less hovel. The unfortunate incidents connected with the 
life of a slave he appeared to care little for. "I was seldom 
whipped, and never severely," he writes; but he felt that 
slavery kept him from being a man., and this was misery. 
He decided that he would be a man, and with awful em- 
phasis of character began to train himself to that end. The 
good-hearted Miss Auld taught him to read, and then he 
started upon his career of knowledge by secretly purchasing 



630. THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRT. 

the "Columbian Orator." " There," he says, "I met with 
one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on the subject of ' Cath- 
ohc Emancipation,' Lord Chatham's speech on the American 
war, and speeches by the great WiUiam Pitt, and by Fo.x." 
These speeches contirmed his confidence in himself, and 
added to his limited stock of language, giving tongue to 
many interesting thoughts which had frequently flashed 
through his soul, but had died awa}' for want of utterance. 
After many vexatious delays, and at the peril of his life, he 
fled from Baltimore and finally landed in New Bedford. 
While he sawed wood, shoveled coal, and rolled oil casks, 
his mind was reaching onward. At the end of three years' 
residence in the North, he appeared on the platform at the 
convention held at Nantucket. His long-pent-up desires 
obtaining this first outlet, he rose above the occasion into 
the heights of masterly eloquence. He left the hall that 
night having triumphed over trained speakers, and given the 
world to know, what he had so long felt, that he was able 
for more than common duties. He soon visited England, and 
was received with the greatest enthusiasm. Elis courtly man- 
ner, oratorical voice and cultivated speeches caused her learned 
heads to appreciate as they had never done before, what self- 
reliance, added to good abilities, was able to accomplish. 

He has indulged in a more caustic criticism of the life and 
habits of his own brethren than any other writer. He is a 
reformer of the most advanced school, always pleading that 
men must reform themselves; but his life is a greater com- 
ment on the potency of decision, perseverance and self 
reliance than all the orations and essaj's he has ever given 
the world. 

It is no evidence of self-reliance to rush into a fray with- 
out being fully prepared for it. Self-reliance without cau- 



SELF-RELIANCE. (J31 

tiousness is but a sorry help in a hotly contested encounter. 
It is the remark of such men that they tremble before a 
struggle when not fully equipped, but like Wellington, when 
they have men and have them well fed they are not afraid 
to meet the enemy. General Sherman stood for this prin- 
ciple in the Northern army, as Stonewall Jackson did in the 
Southern. When Sherman went to Washington and offered 
his services, Secretary Cameron told him that the storm 
would soon subside, and they wouldn't need many troops. 
Sherman replied, " This thing is not the ebullition of feeling. 
It is the great settled con\iction of might)- men, and there 
will be a long and desperate conflict before it is ended." 
But he met the disagreeable fate of the prophets of evil. 
He refused to have anything to do with raising three- 
months' men, saying, '' You might as well attempt to put 
out the flames of a burning house with a squirt-gun." After 
the war had progressed some months the Secretar}' of War 
asked, " How many troops do you need in your depart- 
ment?" "Sixty thousand," answered Sherman," to drive 
the enemy out of Kentuck}' ; two hundred thousand to fin- 
ish the war in this section." Forthwith the story went 
afloat that Sherman was crazy. Time proved that the 
sturdy general, who refused to give battle unless possessed 
of equal advantages with his enemies, was reckoning accord- 
ing to the strength of his host. 

This quality never uses undue haste in preparation. Con- 
scious of its own power it bides its time. Hurry is an evi- 
dence of weakness. The young Persian general pitched at 
the enemy at daybreak and was whipped before breakfast; 
but the old hero gave his men a warm breakfast, and hav- 
ing got every thing in readiness, sallied forth and regained 
the day. It requires uncommon nerve to hold steady until 



632 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

you see the whites of the enemy's eyes, but when the bat 
tery is opened it gives a deadly tire. Cicero determined at 
an early age that he would have a voice in the destiny of 
his country, and at fourteen left Aspinum for Rome, that he 
might be schooled to that end. He prostrated himself by 
the drudgery of his study under Archias, and then flung 
himself into the camp for three years, for a Roman states- 
man must be a trained soldier. Not until the age of twenty- 
seven did he make his first speech as a lawyer. His works 
have been used for nineteen hundred years. 

But all this catalogue is of little avail if 3-ou are leaning 
on some one else for assistance. Like that piece of flesh in 
the museum that has all the other qualities for a man but 
backbone, lopped over and quivering like a jelly-fish, so a 
man without self-reliance is never able to hold himself per- 
pendicular and at rest. To decide upon his course and 
accept the responsibility of it without a tremor is what made 
Burke a great statesman. He said his impeachment of 
Warren Hastings would be either his crowning glory or his 
crowning shame, but that he felt able to make it his glory 
When he delivered his impeachment speech, Hastings said 
he knew the force of that one man would convict him, and 
under the utterance of that awful sentence, " I impeach 
Warren Hastings," he was almost convicted. When the 
Douglas lay mortally wounded on the field of Otterburn, he 
ordered his name to be shouted by his followers. They were 
rallied by the name of him that knew only victory, and 
" The Douglas dead, his name hath won the field." 

The vast majority of men who have come to eminence 
have risen from the ranks. The field and forum, invention 
and science, have not received their brightest stars from the 
titled born; their names have sprung from poverty and 



SELF-RELIANCE. 633 

obscurity, by the aid of perseverance and self-reliance. The 
fable of the labors of Hercules is the type of all human doing 
and success. " You are a plebeian," said a patrician to 
Cicero. " I am a plebeian," said the eloquent Roman; "the 
nobility of my family begins with me; that of yours will end 
with you." The world jilted Dr. Johnson, but he snapped 
his big fingers at her folly and took his seat as the king of 
literature. Their own ability, animated by their sublime 
self-reliance, made Wellington, Bonaparte and Caesar the 
heroes of the battle-fiell. It made Demosthenes, Chatham 
and Burke, Webster, Franklin and Calhoun the world's 
statesmen and orators. It made Palissy, Cu\ier and Colum- 
bus, Howe, Humboldt and Livingstone the world's inventors 
and discoverers. From Croesus to Grant, those men who 
have won the most have relied the most upon themselves. 

We close this chapter with a somewhat long but sprightly 
episode taken from the life of Napoleon. This rare man 
furnishes a striking example of what a self-reliant man may 
accomplish. Without friends, and despising wealth, he lifted 
himself from orphanage to be the architect of empires. The 
daring of his marches previous to the battle of Austerlitz, on 
which field he humbled three monarchs and sealed the peace 
of Europe for ten years, was his most brilliant exercise of this 
great faculty. Abbott furnishes a graphic picture of the cam- 
paign. Notwithstanding the victory at Ulm, Bonaparte was 
still in imminent peril. One hundred and sixteen thousand 
Russians were hurr3'ing through the plains of Poland to meet 
him. From every quarter of Austria, columns of troops 
were in rapid march to unite with the Russians. Alexander 
of Russia repaired in person to Berlin to unite the army of 
Prussia with the aUies. " At midnight, Alexander and Fred- 
erick William descended into the dark and dismal tomb of 



634 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Frederick the Great. A single torch revealed the gloom of 
the regal mausoleum. Thus standing in the dead of night 
b}- the coffin of the renowned warrior, they bound themselves 
by a solemn oath to sustain the cause of the ' allied Kings ' 
against the growing encroachments of Bonaparte. 

England hastened thirty thousand troops to the scene of 
conflict. It was surely time for the young invader to retreat, 
or fortify himself and await the assault of his combined foes. 
But he audaciously pressed on into the very midst of impend- 
ing destruction. Like an inundation his victorious army 
rolled down the valle}' of the Danube, sweeping every thing 
belbre them. In three days he entered Munich, but he 
rested not for an hour; he allowed his discomfited foe not one 
moment to recover from their panic. ' Forward to Vienna! ' 
v/as the command. The impetuous torrent rolled resistlessly 
on. Austria was in consternation. Francis fled from his 
capital. The Austrians and Russians, retreating from the 
blows which fell so thick and heavily upon them, fled to join 
the army which Alexander was leading to the rescue. Bona- 
parte stood upon the heights which surrounded Vienna. 
From the prostrate city he replenished his need}' stores. In 
twenty days he had marched from the ocean to the Rhine; 
in forty days from the Rhine to Vienna. 

But Bonaparte, thus victorious, was in a situation critical 
in the- extreme. " Europe deemed him irretrievably ruined. 
He was hundreds of leagues from his own capital. It was 
cold and icy winter. AVith a small army, he was in the heart 
of the most powerful monarchy on the globe. Seventy thous- 
and Austrians were approaching him from the south; eighty 
thousand Hungarians were rushing to the conflict ; and a hun- 
dred thousand Russians were but a few days' march before 
him. His rear was exposed to assault from two hundred 



SELF-RELIANCE. fi35 

thousand Prussians. Surely he will stop and fortify himself 
behind the ramparts of Vienna. But, no! the command is 
still, ' Onward ! Onward ! ! ' Not a moment was allowed 
for repose. The cold winds of winter now swept the plains ; 
the driving snow whitened the hills. Still the indomitable 
host pressed on, till amid the dark storms of the north it had 
disappeared from the observation of France. Upon the field 
of Austerlitz, fifteen hundred miles from the capital of France, 
Bonaparte met his foes. An army of nearly one hundred 
thousand men, headed by the two Emperors, Alexander and 
Francis, flushed with anticipated victory, arrested the steps 
of the conqueror. Bonaparte had but seventy thousand men. 
Not an hour was to be lost. Horsemen and footmen were 
hurrying in uncounted thousands to add still greater strength 
to the allied hosts." 

On the first of December the self-reliant hero came in sight 
of his foe with " inexpressible delight." " To-morrow," said 
he, "before nightfall that army shall be my own." His soul 
kept pace with the growing majesty of the situation. He 
felt that the sheer force of his will could crush the advancing 
battalions of the enemy. " Soldiers! " he said, " I will myself 
direct all your battalions. I will keep myself at a distance 
from your fire. But should victory appear for a moment 
uncertain, you shall see your Emperor expose himself to the 
first strokes. Victory must not be doubtful on this occa- 
sion." At sunrise he sounded the charge. From an emi- 
nence he directed every mo\emcnt of his troops. He could 
rely on no one but himself. The French army hurled itself 
upon the allies with the same spirit that had animated their 
desperate march. Bonaparte stood the calmest man in all 
the conflict, " watching the onset of his eagles." And before 
noon he closed the war "with a clap of thunder." 




^iimfi -q. <mm^' 



'The uncleared forest the unbroken soil, 
The iron bark that turns the lumberman's ax, 
The rapid that o'erbears the boatman's toil. 
The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks, 

'The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear — 
Such were the needs that helped his youth to train; 
Royal culture — but such trees large fruits may bear. 
If but their stocks be of right girth and gram." 




Villi^m L hm 



nm%. 




ILLIAM G. GREENE was born in the State of 
Tennessee, January 27, i8t2. His youth was not 
to be distinguished from that of other men, except 
in his occasional exhibitions of " grit." The family resi- 
dence was situated on a spur of the Cumberland Mountains, 
and was approached by the ordinary dug-out road, over 
ledges of rock, the fall from one to another of these some- 
times being two feet. 

When William was nine years old his father determined 
to move to Illinois, and to this end purchased a wagon. In 
that region wagons were rare, hauling being done almost 
universally on sleds. This one was in the full style of those 
days — scoop bed and stiff tongue, with a long chain at the 
end to fasten to the horse-collar. 

The wagon was with difficulty brought up the steep 
grade, and landed with much ceremony at the top, in front 
of the house. The children dashed out to see the wonder. 
Some of them climbed upon the wheels, and a larger one 
got behind to see if he could push it. It started down the 
road. William got hold of one of the tongue-chains and 
yelled "Whoa! " but it refused to stop. He squared him- 

6,)7 

I 



638 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

self back and called on his brothers to " hold on," but the}' 
had let go. Going over the first ledge the little fellow was 
jerked off his feet, and away went the wagon down the 
steep grade, jumping the oftsets and tearing along the 
declivity with increased velocity at every bound of the 
wheels. 

At the foot of the mountain the tongue struck a tree and 
broke in two, the wagon careering on. By the time the 
frightened family reached the spot William was picking 
himself up from the foot of the tree, his clothes all stripped 
from him, and his breast and limbs bruised and bleeding. 
"Where is the wagon.''" shouted the father. "I don't 
know," said the bo}', "but here's what I had a hold of" — 
holding up the chain and the broken end of the tongue. 
"Billy," said the mother, "why didn't 3'ou let go.''" 
" Why, mother, I was a-goin' to hold on if it killed me. If 
I'd a let it got away we'd never got to Ellinoy." 

General Sherman exhibited a similar instance of pluck 
when he was only five 3'ears of age. Mrs. Stowe sa3's that, 
having been put upon a spirited horse by some mischievous 
mates, the horse ran away to a tavern some miles off. He 
stuck fast to the horse, though without saddle or bridle, and 
without size or strength to use them if he had them. It was 
a mere chance that he arri\-ed safe, and, when lifted off b}' 
the S3''mpathizing inmates of the inn, the little fellow admit- 
ted that he was shaken and sore with the ride, but he added, 
" I'll be better to-morrow, and then Pll ride back.'''' 

These instances possess no importance within themselves, 
but the3' show a constitutional determination to stick to a 
thing once begun, and an utter absence of fear. This facult3', 
which never takes danger into account, and never tries to 
keep at a distance from it, is as valuable in commerce as on 



WILLIAJI G. GREENE. 639 

the field. Its full possession is quite uncommon. Nelson 
possessed it to a very high degree. The future victor of 
Trafalgar, when a mere child, had strayed away from home, 
and got lost. When found and taken home, a relative 
remarked, "I should think that fear. would keep you from 
going so far awa}'." "Fear.'*" said the young gentleman, 
quite innocently — "Fear.'' I don't know him." 

If you had been at the forks of the old Salem road about 
daybreak, on a certain morning in the spring of 1830, you 
could have seen another specimen of this boy's decisiveness. 
Astride of a grist of corn, on the faithful family mare, 
crowned with brimless hat and clothed in homespun, he was 
hurrying to the Salem mill to secure the first "turn." You 
might have suspected, by the twinkle of his eye, that there 
was fun and sagacit}' there, but you would never have 
imagined that that boy would one day become a builder of 
railroads, one of the foremost financiers in his State, and a 
successful manager in nominating a national President. 

As he rode along, tr}'ing to get to mill before the sun 
rose, thoughts were pouring through his mind of coming 
schemes in business, and then d3-ing away again for want of 
words to bring thein into expression. That boy was William 
G. Greene, now eighteen years of age — the period at which 
most 5'oung men are pretty well through with their college 
course and passing into cultured society. He, however, had 
possessed but the rude advantages of the winter district 
school, so characteristic of those da3's, and was still striving 
to content himself with the linsey-woolsey society of the 
backwoods. 

Just before Greene reached Salem, a man dashed past 
him and stopped at the " store." It proved to be Reuben 
Radford, the proprietor. The " Clary's Grove Bo3-s," an 



640 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

organized band of desperadoes, had taken possession of the 
store the night before, during Radford's absence, and in 
their drunken melee had left its contents in hopeless confu- 
sion. Greene arrived in time to hear Radford exclaim: 
" I'll sell this thing to the first man that makes me a bid." 
Greene rode up to the solitary window, and, sticking his 
head through a broken pane, took a hasty glance at the 
state of affairs, and said, " I'll give you four hundred dollars 
for it." The offer was at once accepted; and the penniless 
boy, who had never made a trade before, walked into the 
store and signed a note, payable in six months. 

Naturally enough, after the purchase of the store, Greene 
was anxious to know the exact worth of the stock. Abra- 
ham Lincoln, who was boarding in the log hotel across the 
street, assisted him in the inventory, and at sun-down their 
books revealed eight hundred dollars worth of goods left from 
the raid. Berry and Lincoln offered Greene a four-hundred- 
dollar note, two hundred and sixty-five dollars in cash, and a 
fine horse, for his store. With the celerity of his morning 
decision, Greene accepted it. By moonlight he mounted his 
horse, and with a new hat on his head and two hundred and 
sixty-five dollars jingling in his pockets, the mill-boy of the 
morning galloped home a retired merchant. 

His two most intimate friends, from this time forward 
were Abraham Lincoln and Richard Yates. But the poet 
ical temperament of Yates and the statesmanlike turn of Lin 
coin, exercised no influence on Greene's choice of a life call 
ing. " Nature made you boys for lawyers," he would say 
•• but she built me for business. You will both become great 
in your professions, but, were I to go with you, I would make 
a failure." There seems, at no time in life, to have been the 
least desire of relinquishing his chosen path. Lincoln, while 



WILLTAM G. GREENE. 641 

in the Presidency, sought to give him an important political 
position, but he steadfastly refused it. Only once did he ac- 
cept an office, and then it was for the good of his State. 
As soon as the crisis was past he retired. 

On Greene's return home with his day's profits, he entered 
the family room, and, striding over the carpetless floor, he 
uncovered the coals in the fireplace, and began piling on the 
morning kindlings. " What you burnin' them kindlin's fur .^" 
exclaimed his father, waking from his slumbers; "clear out 
and go to bed, you rascal, you." Here Greene purposely 
dropped a few fifty-cent pieces on the hearth. The old gen- 
tleman cried to his wife, "Liz., this is what comes of givin' 
that boy so much larnin'. Tve always been warnin' you he'd 
do somethin' bad." Greene poked the fire to a brighter 
blaze, and dropped some fifty-cent and five-franc pieces on 
the floor. " Go to bed, you rascal, you ! " exclaimed the out- 
raged father again, and turned himself out on the side of the 
bed. Billy said nothing, but poked the fire again, and rolled 
some more money on the floor. The father's curiosity now 
fully aroused, he cried, " What's that you're a doin' there. 
Bill.''" For the first time the boy spoke: "I've sold the 
store, father, and this is a part of the profits." The father 
reached his hand round under the pillow, where he kept an 
old Virginia twist, exclaiming, " I guess I'll take a chaw." 
Here a double-handful of silver came out, and went rolling 
over the floor. " Crackens! " cried the old man, and he 
dashed on to the floor and began to gather up the straggling 
dollars. Out came some more. "Jerusalem! Here, mother, 
get up and get this little feller a warm supper; he's done the 
best da^'s work he ever done." 

Lincoln was always fond of referring to this incident. 
When Greene was visiting him toward the close of the war. 



642 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

he congratulated Mr. Lincoln on the important place he was 
destined to lill in his country's history. " Yes," said Mr. 
Lincoln, " if I close this business up satisfactorily Fll have a 
'warm supper;' but if not, it will be, ' go to bed, you ras- 
cal.'" 

A strong natural bias for any particular calling is not 
always manifested in youth. But when this natural predilec- 
tion is exhibited, it becomes the sign-board of the life, and 
woe be to him who will not obey its pointing. The circum- 
stances of a family, the ambition of a father, and the associ- 
ations of a youth, may completely hide from sight all the nat- 
ural buddings of the life. It is possible to keep them forever 
suppressed; but it is done at a price that the subject can ill 
aflbrd. The man who, under the family command, or any 
other cause, enters a calling for which nature has not de- 
signed him, may do well, and come to love it, but he is 
always pulling against the tide. When the boy West would 
rob hairs from the family cat for his brushes he did not have 
to be driven to his painting. But Pascal was so averse to 
literature that his father was finally compelled to abandon 
his purpose in despair, and let him go to what he would. 
At sixteen he astounded the learned by a treatise on conic 
sections. 

So in }'oung Greene: when he broke the barriers that were 
thrown about him. Nature grasped at every opportunity to 
assert herself. Had not his predilections been so strong, his 
career would have been quite different. To his mother he 
owes more than to any other person. She it was who 
detected, in his early years, the aspirations of his heart, and 
gently nourished ever}' rising impulse. Her sensitive nature 
was not in harmony with the rude ideas of frontier life, and 
she assiduously sought to give her culture and sentiments to 



WILLIAM G. QBEENE. 643 

her children. A mother's influence is lasting on a child, and 
as manifest when she sows the seeds of infamy as when she 
inculcates the highest virtues. Lamartine's life was rendered 
fickle and void by a mother's vain and affected behavior. 
The name of Nero would not stand as the synonym for cru- 
elty and misrule, if a mother had not turned his footsteps in 
the way of poison and the sword. Was not great Byron's 
course made weak, vacillating and misanthropic by the teach- 
ings of a pampering mother.^ How sad this refrain: 

" Yet must I think less wildly! I have thought 
Too long and darkly, till my brain became, 
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, 
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame; 
And thus, tintaiight in youth my heart to tame^ 
Aly springs of life ifcre ■poisoiiedi''' 

The First Consul, when in conversation with Madame 
Necker, remarked: "France needs mothers!" A loving, 
caring mother — a thoughtful, moral mother — how much are 
children indebted to such! It was a mother's influence that 
gave the Wesleys to the world. Only a mother was able 
to control the fractious spirit of Bonaparte, and teach him 
the eleinents of obedience. Cromwell's biographer says 
that his mother possessed the glorious facult}- of self-help 
when other assistance failed her; that it was her training 
that made him the careful disciplinarian he was, through 
which he largely won his victories. In the palace of White- 
hall, amid all her splendor, her only thought was for the 
safety of her son in his dangerous eminence. " It is quite 
true," said Joseph de Maistre, '' that women have produced 
no chefs (foeuvre. They have written no Iliad, nor Jerusa- 
lem Delivered, nor Paradise Lost, nor Tartuffe, nor Phsed- 
rus, nor Hamlet; they have designed no Church of St. 



644 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Peter, composed no Messiah, carved no Apollo Belvedere, 
painted no Last Judgment; they have invented neither 
algebra, nor telescopes, nor steam engines ; but the}' ha\e 
done something far greater and better than all this, for it is at 
their knees that upright Jlnd virtuous men and women 
have been trained — the most excellent productions in the 
world." 

Reared in the newly settled State of Illinois, Greene was 
debarred of those educational advantages which surround 
the youth of older communities. But experience has 
demonstrated that college halls and adventitious circum- 
stances are not always the forces most conducive to success. 
These advantages are to be coveted, but doubly strong is he 
who can rise without their aid. Without energy and tact 
one can not rise under any surroundings. It is almost a 
truism, that success is the creature of enei^gy and tact. Men 
may sometimes blunder into fame or fortune; but, unless 
they possess sterling qualities, the sequel of their lives is apt 
to prove that the}' were unworthily intrusted with its great 
advantages. Opportunities come to every man; but only a 
few seize upon them and rise with them to success. In 
great emergencies men spring to the front and become lead- 
ers. It is not so much because their opportunities were 
greater as that they possessed the qualities which, in all ages, 
have been recognized as the masters of success, and by 
which they were enabled to take advantage of that 
" — tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." 

These truths, which have been happily expressed in the 
saying, that " every man is the architect of his own fortune," 
are, perhaps, nowhere more decidedl}- manifest than in new 
settlements. Here intrinsic aids are peculiarly absent. 



WILLIAM Cr. OREENE. 645 

Famil}' influence loses its power. Every man stands on his 
own merits. If anjthing is accomplished it must be by 
individual exertion. Add to this the rugged development 
of character b}" actual contact with hardships, the courage 
and confidence born of meeting obstacles and overcoming 
them, and we have the school in which the highest types of 
manhood have been developed. It was the training by 
which Abraham Lincoln rose from obscurity to eminence; 
that gave us the "noble Romans; " this that brought to the 
front England's best captains and statesmen; this that has 
given to America the strong, manly characters of her his- 
tory. And, profiting by this experience, William G. Greene 
has been enabled to imprint his name upon the annals of his 
State as one deeply enlisted in her worthiest interests. 

In his early daj's there was but little money in the com- 
munity. St. Louis, one hundred and twent3'-five miles 
distant, was the onl}' market for farm products. When 
going to market, to stop at the taverns for accommodation 
would h'lve been to consume the pittance one received for 
his produce; hence the farmers of those days were accus- 
tomed to bivouac around camp-fires, and considered them- 
selves fortunate if they could find a hollow log to turn in to. 
The earnings of a year were "sunk " in the pocket of the 
country merchant in many instances. It was the era of hog 
and hominy. " Dodgers " was the expressive title they 
gave their bread, based upon the indisputable fact that upon 
a certain memorable occasion of connubial infelicity the 
" defenseless female " found them admirable substitutes for 
stones. Those who were so fortunate as to reside near 
streams, "jugged" for "cat." Mink and otter were the 
victims of their ingenious traps. Cucumbers, paw-paws, 
melons and roasting-ears constituted their variety of fruits. 



6i6 THE- GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

Razor-backed swine filed through the thickets of black-jack, 
in all directions, too ordinary to require a brand and too 
lean to trail a shadow. Raffling for turkeys and the drinks 
was to them a popular pastime. The odds and ends of the 
hours were occupied in wrestling, jumping, or pitching 
quoits. Home-made jeans and linsey-woolsey were the 
court-dress, and a 'coon-skin cap the crowning piece of these 
pioneer kings. 

Such were the surroundings amid which Greene had to 
educate himself for his life's work. Yet he found them suf 
ficient, with his active mind, to form the basis of a solid and 
practical character. lie was quick to grasp the intricacies 
of thought, and what he once learned was never forgotten. 
Lincoln was some three years older than Greene; but, so far 
as education was concerned, the latter had the advantage, 
for from him Lincoln learned his first lessons in grammar. 

In 1832 Greene laid aside his efTorts for an education, and 
enlisted in the Black Hawk war. Lincoln was chosen cap- 
tain of the company raised at Salem. They served their 
country for twenty days, but they were days characterized 
by hardships rather than glory. 

On Greene's return home he became a student of Illinois 
College, at Jacksonville. Leaving home with twenty dollars 
in his pocket, and a homespun suit of clothes on his back, 
he determined to have an education if energy and economy 
could carry him through. He entered the industrial depart- 
ment, where students were paid eight to ten cents an hour 
for their labor. Here began a course of unflagging indus- 
try, which was increased rather than diminished through 
the three years' course at this institution, and in which was 
laid the solid foundation of a liberal education. He worked 
every hour of the day not occupied by recitations, and pur- 



WILLIJJf O. GREENE. 6i7 

sued his studies far into the night. For Saturday's work he 
would receive seventy-five cents. He prepared his own food, 
which cost him thirty-five cents a week. 

He was not long in attracting the attention of Dr. Ed- 
ward Beecher, then president of the school. His perfect 
lessons, his happy faculty of making clear the most puzzling 
problems, and his wonderful industry in working hours, 
caused Dr. Beecher to interview him on several occa- 
sions, for the purpose of having him enter the theological 
course, Beecher and Sturtevant promising to furnish him 
means to take him through to graduation. But he 
told them that the Lord had never called him to preach, 
and, moreover he believed that in his case a self-earned edu- 
cation waj essential to after success. He aimed to clear a 
little more money every day than he spent; and so well had 
he employed his time that, when he left school at the end 
of three years, he had two good suits of " store clothes," 
eighty acres of land that he had entered, and sixty dollars 
in money — forty dollars more than he had left home with. 

To keep his expenses below his income, no matter how 
meager the income might be, has ever been a principle in 
Mr. Greene's life. He estimates that a hundred thousand 
dollars of his fortune has been accumulated by obeying the 
principles of economy, as set forth by Benjamin Franklin, in 
a little volume for which he paid fifty cents. He could 
make mone}-, but he did not know how to save it until he 
chanced upon this book. Largeh' through its influence he 
was induced to undertake his self-education. " The secret 
of all success," says Mrs. Oliphant, '' is to know how to deny 
3'ourself If 3'ou once learn to get the whip-hand of jour- 
self, that is the best educator. Prove to me tliat you can 
control 3'ourself, and I'll say that you are an educated man; 



648 THE GEN/US OF INDUSTUY. 

and without this, all other education is good for next to- 
nothing." 

Economy does not demand any unusual intellectual endow- 
ments for its practice; only common sense and the power of 
resisting selfish enjoyments. It does not even call for any 
great exercise of the will; it only asks a little patient self- 
denial. ,Yet how few can persuade themselves to practice 
this negative virtue. Because they will not, half the young 
men of the land enter business life in debt, and once feeling 
straitened, foolish pride causes them to still further in\olve 
themselves, to keep up appearances, and under the lash of a 
"soul-eating interest," they are hounded through life, and 
die bankrupts. The 3-outh whose energies are his onl}- stouk 
in trade must keep his expenses below his income. The 
man who spends more than his income, is driving on to ruin, 
no matter if his income is ten thousand a year. The man 
who persists in spending less than his income, is making a 
financial success, no, matter if his income is but a dollar a 
da}'. Cicero averred that the best source of wealth was 
economy. 

Men who have made every dollar of their wealth know 
the toil and the self-denial that the first thousand dollars 
cost. But it requires somewhat less effort to make the next 
thousand, and so on in a decreasing ratio, until money- 
getting is no longer a struggle. Getting a seed, and getting 
it started to grow — getting a few thousand dollars, and 
getting it so shaped that it will increase itself — is the crisis 
of financial life. The man who thinks more of pleasure 
than he does of ultimate good, will never pass through the 
pinchings and sacrifices of this ordeal, and, bej'ond the 
merest chance, he is destined to live next door to poverty all 
his days. 



WILLIAM G. GREENE. 649 

Realizing tlie worth of the determined purpose, Mr. 
Greene has never permitted himself to trifle with this 
faculty, so fully given him by nature. lie has studiously 
refused to engage in any enterprise which he thought he 
might, after a time, have a desire to relinquish, and has act- 
ually kept out of ventures bearing the element of uncer-. 
tainty, because he knew that when his will was once fi.xed 
it would drive him through the undertaking, no matter what 
the result might be. When he has once decided upon a 
scheme, he sets about its accomplishment with the cautious 
but restless tread of a lion on the path of its prey. Able to 
grasp long ranges of nicelj'-balanced contingencies in a 
trade, and jumping over the slow processes of logic, to exer- 
cise unerring judgment by intuition, he has seldom failed to 
prosecute any enterprise to a successful termination. 

A cop3' of the Life of Hannibal chanced to fall in his way 
while 3-et a youth. Reading it, his soul fed upon the deter- 
mined spirit of the Carthagenian hero. He quicklj' came 
to the conclusion that Hannibal was the master general of 
the world, but that his giant determination was worth more 
than all his arts of war. He pored over this volume with a 
perfect rage of enthusiasm. Hannibal was enthroned as his 
model of will-force and self-reliance. His mother's careful 
training and the invigorating example of this volume were 
the two most potent agencies in molding him for the strug- 
gles of life. 

He cultivated will-power as the absolute necessit}' of a suc- 
cessful life, and, with Suwarrow, "preached it up as a 
system." He that valiantly enters life with wind and tide 
against him will find a "royal will" of more worth than a 
score of mere accomplishments. Scholarship, wealth, pedi- 
gree, circumstances, and even nature itself must yield before 



650 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

indomitable will. By it Franklin was enabled to set political 
tricker}' at a detiance, outwit the diplomats of England,- and 
secure S3"mpathy and aid for the struggling colonies. Lord 
Thurlow began his legal career with all the odds of estab- 
lished barristers and wealth-befriended young lawyers against 
.a poverty-stricken and unknown youth; by the "graces of 
his grit " he struck manly blows on the hard iron of public 
patronage, and eventually brought the nation to be his client. 
The bold and daring schemes of Commodore Vanderbilt 
would have often proved futile had not his giant will backed 
them to success. Against the unequal odds with which 
Greene had to contend in his start in life, all his other virtues 
would have proved barren had he not been blessed with 
that will which always inakes a way. 

The mutual respect that was awakened between Greene 
and Lincoln on their first acquaintance, had steadily grown 
during the following six years, and had deepened and ripened 
into profound friendship. Mr. Lincoln was a man of broad 
moral nature. He was born with the ten commandments 
engraved on his heart. Greene naturally possessed great 
moral force; but the influences that surrounded him on his 
way to manhood, added to his money-getting propensities, 
had caused him to indulge in gambling. Morally, Lincoln's 
influence was almost boundless over Greene, and on all mat- 
ters of business Greene stood like an oracle to Lincoln. 
Greene was unusually successful in his gaming, but he began 
to feel its taint reaching out through his commercial rela- 
tions, and decided that it must be given up. 

There was a certain traveling gambler who had beaten 
him unfairly on a recent occasion, and he felt that he would 
be utterly ruined if he should quit and leave the man on the 
"lead." He accordingly told Lincoln that he had resolved 



WILLIAJf G. OHEENE. 651 

to quit gaming; but he could'nt think of it until he had got 
even with Jones. Lincohi was about as sagacious in some 
of the queer ways of the settlement as Greene ; and he offered 
to help him out of this difficulty, on the principle that of two 
evils it is best always to choose the least. " The next time 
Jones comes round," said Lincoln, " you bet him the silk 
hats tor two, that there is a man here that can lift up a 
whisk}^ barrel and drink out of the bung-hole." 

In a few days the victim came around, bantering for a 
game, when Greene made his offer on the agreed bet which 
Jones quickly accepted. Lincoln was introduced from the 
next room; lifted the barrel up on one knee, then lifted the 
other end up on the other knee, leaned over and drank out 
of the bung. Jones was astonished at his herculean strength, 
and then became enraged at the greater moral Hercules 
when he spit the liquor out, refusing to swallow it. Since 
that day Greene has not wagered a cent, nor in any way 
participated in a game of chance. 

Money gained by any game of chance sejdom stays with 
a man, and it seldom has a man to stay with. A square and 
legitimate business is the only safe reliance. If fortune 
smiles on a gamester to-day, she will frown on him to-morrow 
and leave him fleeced. Beau Brummel started with a six- 
pence and bagged thousands; but his luck turned, and the 
fortune went faster than it came. Charlie Robbins won at 
every table, and could guess to a vote the majority of the 
successful candidate. An evil genius then took hold of him. 
Judgment left him, nerve forsook him, his hand lost its cun- 
ning, and he was reduced to beg for bread. 

So we find the same rules working in the thing next akin 
to this — speculation. Ralston went to California in almost 
the character of an adventurer. His judgment on a trading 



652 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

venture became a Midas-like touch. Gold flowed into his 
coffers like harvest in the fabled land, where, instead of sow- 
ing and tilling, you have only to plunge irf the sickle and 
reap. He entertained princes and financial magnates after 
a royal fashion. He took the chair of the Bank of Califor- 
nia. He devised money schemes and manipulated them to 
a success that would have made Crcesus proud. But he 
missed his calculations once, then again and again; then he 
went to the wall. His failure startled the community as an 
earthquake does a quiet land. The cause could not be 
understood. The whence and whither of his fortune was a 
mystery. 

In much the same way Daniel Drew was crushed. So, in 
Chicago, one can lay his fingers on a half dozen. who have 
retired from luxury and affluence this very twelvemonth, for 
the same reasons. That which comes by speculation or b}' 
gaming is a result of chance ; no equivalent has been rendered 
for it; no abiding law of commerce controlled it; so, sooner 
or later it goes, as it cafne, and the penniless holder stands 
bewildered. But why should this downfall surprise him.'' It 
was chance that brought it to him, and chance that claimed 
its own. 

In new settlements, ideas do not germinate so rapidly as 
in the crowded districts. In the cities, the masses will fight 
a new idea all day long with the ferocit}' of tigers ; but at night 
they will go home, sleep over it, and to-morrow, two chances 
to three, they will come out to fight for it. Was not Wil- 
liam Lloyd Garrison once mobbed in Boston for attempting 
to address the "Boston Female Anti Slaver}' Society.'"' He 
was rushed by the ma}'or into a closed carriage, the police- 
men yelling at the horses to hurry them on, and beating the 



WILLIAM O. GREENE. 653 

mob with their clubs to hold them back. Lodged in a prison 
cell, Garrison wrote with his pencil on the wall: 

" William Lloyd Garrison was put into this cell on Wednes- 
day afternoon, Oct. 21, 1835, to save him trom the violence 
of a ' respectable and influential ' mob, who sought to destroy 
him for preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine 
that 'all men are created equal,' and that all oppression is 
odious in the sight of God. ' Hail, Columbia! ' Cheers for 
the Autocrat of Russia and the Sultan of Turke}'! " 

In less than twenty years from that day Boston was dan- 
gerously near mobbing a man who sought to preach against 
the " Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society." Did not our 
glorious old forefathers leave English church persecution, 
and flee to this country, where they could worship God 
according to the dictates of their own consciences.'' Yet, 
within a hundred 3'ears the}' drove Roger Williams to the 
wilderness and to the savages, because he wanted to serve 
God the same way. The great revolution in Northern sen- 
timent that was so agitating the New England States in 
I S3 5, was slow in making an impression on the Middle States. 
Springing from an old Tennessee family, Greene was 
intensely Southern in all his feelings. One night, at Illinois 
College, the debating society discussed " the r/V///'of slavery." 
No one could be found to deny that right, except with the 
proviso that they did it for the debate's sake. 

The next da}^, Robert Patterson — the present Rev. Dr. 
Patterson, of Chicago — expressed his regret at being absent 
from the debate, and said he would have taken the negative. 
"I am opposed to slaver}*," he continued. "I believe it to 
be a sin, and God will yet curse this nation for the iniquity." 
Greene stood in mute astonishment before the audacious 
speaker and his revolutionary doctrine. The divinity of 



654 THE GEXIUS OP INDUSTBT. 

slavery had never been questioned in his presence before. 
His soul revolted at such political heres}', and yet he admired 
the boldness of his school-fellow. He has ever since watched 
the career of Dr. Patterson with great interest. 

Jean Paul Richter says when the thought broke upon him 
that he lived he was overwhelmed by the fact. This thought 
that slavery might be on debatable ground first caused W. 
G. Greene to ihinh. The ages are very different when we 
begin to think. Richter saj's he could not remember the 
time when he began to think. Some begin at twent}', some 
at fort}', and others never. Fortunate is that man through 
whose brain a red-hot bolt of doctrine in politics or religion, 
or in anv thing, flies and flashes, causing him for all after 
life to think. 




'WiWi^T^ ^^ ^i^^^i^^* 



(PPl^T)NPfP-) 



HEN once a man has become a thinker, half his dan- 
■i ''/,^ IK) ger from vice is averted, and half his moral character 
rC^'M^J is made. Thought is the great moral anaesthetic. The 
thinkers are the moving powers in their community, witli rare 
exceptions. A thoughtful man leaves vice and seeks virtue; 
hence, from its acti\e character, moral association is more 
potent for good than corrupt association is for bad. Even 
those of bad habits love to be influenced by the thoughtful 
men. 

There are certain epochs in every man's life that are favor- 
able to good resolutions. There are certain times when no 
one ought to frame resolutions. This is counter to the cur- 
rent of public sentimentalism, which says it is always in order 
to do good. When a man is on the verge of bankruptcy ; 
when every acre is mortgaged, and every bond is h3'pothe- 
cated; when ruin stares him in the face, and duns fall as thick 
as autumn leaves — that is no time to resolve that he will 
never go in debt again. The circumstances surrounding him 
are unfavorable to such resolutions; it is an oath taken under 

655 



656 THE OENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

duress. Wait until 3-ou are " released " from bankruptcy; 
then, when business is again commenced on a clean docket, 
with every thing to make and nothing to lose, register the 
resolution; the surroundings are now favorable to its fultill- 
ment. 

Dr. Howard said that of three thousand patients, danger- 
ously ill, who promised to unite with the church if health 
should return, three kept their word. If the promises had 
been made at the proper time — in health — a fair per cent, 
would have been fulfilled. How many tipplers get on a 
melancholy "drunk," and swear to drink no inore.^ How 
man)' thieves, when flying before the sheriff, promise them- 
selves to steal no more.'' How many men engage in excess, 
and, writhing under its cat-o'-nine-tails, declare that the}' will 
do so no more.-^ The failure in all these resolutions is that the}' 
are not made at the right time. Solomon said: " There is 
a time for all things." There is a time to abstain from good 
resolutions. 

There comes a place, to every young man, where his road 
forks, one way leading to virtue, and the other off to vice. 
Up to that time vice and virtue have been almost as one 
quality; now, as his mind develops, and he steps into the 
•struggles of life, the}- are as widely separate as the poles. 
He must bring his will-power to bear, and elect his path, or 
he will gravitate more to the wrong than to the right. It 
was the old Greek sophist, Prodicus, who invented the fable 
of the choice of Hercules. Tennyson has beautifully repro- 
duced it, in lone Qi^none, who tells " man3--fountained " Ida 
of the choice of Paris, when he turned away from Athene 
with her wisdom, to Aphrodite with her love. Pythagoras 
took the letter Y as the symbol of human life: 

" Et tibe, quae Samois didupit litera ramos." 



WILLIAM 6. GREENE. 657 

The stem of the letter denoted that part of human life in 
which character is still unformed; the right hand branch, 
the tiner of the two, represents the path of virtue; the other, 
that of vice. As one of the commentators sa}-s, " The fancy 
took mightily with the ancients." 

There is a clearly-detined turning-point in the life of every 
person. Having been brought to think for himself, and then 
of himself, Mr. Green pursued the course of moralizing 
indulged in above, and, assisted by the brave counsels of his 
friend, he decided that, as manhood's years had now arrived, 
and he had finished school, and was on the threshold of the 
world, he must choose his course of action, and carve it out 
•definitely, no matter what the after surroundings . might be. 
He thereupon made his resolution concerning gaming, and 
decided that he would be a busitiess man. And to help him 
keep his resolutions, and assist him in his plans of thrift, he 
decided he ought to have man's balance-wheel — a wife. 

To engage in business for life, and to find a wife, he 
turned his thoughts to the South. He thought that for 
happiness and for glory there was no place like the " knobs " 
ot old Tennessee. Accordingly, he took up his line of 
march for the South, where all his social and political affini- 
ties were. He arrived in Kentucky without money and 
without friends, having his heart placed on a home of his 
own and an aim high in the financial world. He decided 
that he could teach school, and in a short time have money 
enough to start in business. Toward sunset one evening, 
from the top of a hill, he espied a handsome country house, 
situated in a beautiful valley. Seeing a courtlj'-looking old 
gentleman on the piazza, he dismounted at the gate, and, 
approaching him, asked for a drink. A servant was sent to 
the spring on the hill-side for it. This gave Greene the 



658 TUE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

opportunity he coveted. He sat down in a vacant chair, 
and poured out a stream of conversation that surprised and 
electrified his host. 

There was but Httle travehng in those days, and good 
company was scarce. Mr. Carpenter soon asked his visitor 
to stay all night. Greene shortly made known his business, 
and within an hour was employed as tutor in jNIr. Carpen- 
ter's family. In a few months he moved on to Tennessee, 
and by his eminent success in a suburban school soon 
became principal ot' the Priestly Academ3^ 

At this place he became acquainted with Miss Louisa H. 
White, who filled his ideal of womanhood. Perhaps the 
blind 3'oung god helped to make the decision — he usually 
does- -at any rate, in the following spring Miss White 
became Mrs. Greene. Greene's cool and calculating nature 
had caused him to philosophize much on the value of a wife. 
He had long since come to the conclusion that the man who 
married well had secured half his fortune. A married life 
of fort}' years has, in his case, demonstrated the correctness 
of his philosophy. Many of the world's successful men find 
themselves able to date their onward start from the 
day of their union to a loving, intelligent, common-sense 
woman. 

We hear much of the domestic infelicities of men of 
genius, such as Socrates, Dante, Milton, Montaigne, Moliere, 
Rousseau, Byron, Bulwer and Dickens. With no class of 
men can an uncongenial alliance be conducive of happiness. 
Neither can it be said that the separations which some of 
these illustrious men have indulged in have in anywise fired 
their genius into additional fame, or brought more gold to 
their coffers. 

Pitt sacrificed his own happiness, and tore out of his heart 



WILLIAM G. GREENE. 659 

by the roots as pure a love as man ever entertained, because 
he felt that his ambition could win its height more surel}- in 
a single life. True, he won that for which he had staked 
all; but the celibacy and fame of Pitt, and Newton, and 
Locke, and Leibnitz, and Voltaire, and Hume, and Adam 
Smith, by no means prove it ,true that bachelorhood and 
eminence of life are necessarily joined. Bufibn acknowledged 
his wife's influence over his compositions, and said she helped 
to give him that which was his genius — his patience. The 
younger Pliny blessed Calphurnia, his wife, and asserted 
that her influence gave the world his books. Burke would 
rush like a madman from the worry of his office to his home, 
exclaiming: " Every care vanishes the moment I enter under 
m}' roof And Luther, speaking of his wife, said: ''I 
would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches 
of Croesus without her." 

Would Andy Johnson have ever got beyond his " goose " 
without his wife.^ Did not Ccesar fall when he threw aside 
his wife's entreaties.^ And how man}' of Vanderbilt's mil- 
lions were planned for, worked out, and husbanded by his 
"Sophy? " So, Greene, although a victim to love, felt, tron:i 
the philosopher's stand-point, that he would be unequal to all 
the energies that business and morals would thrust upon him, 
without a wife. One of the ancient wits said that "The men 
ruled Rome, and the women ruled the men." Mr. Greene 
confesses that the affections and counsels of his wife, beyond 
what happiness they have inspired beneath their own roof, 
have largely molded his business character, and materially 
aided in rearing their fortune. 

Greene could no longer brook delay; he moved to Memphis, 
and entered into business. His wife kept a boarding-house, 
and he opened a grocery-store in a shed room, fourteen feet 



660 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

square, adjoining the dwelling. He was well equipped for 
business, for he had $125. In addition to this, he had oood 
health, capacity and energ}-. It' a man fail with these, it 
will do him no good to will him a fortune. Greene well 
knew that he could not successfully compete with the stocked 
houses of the city; but down on the square, where the cotton 
men " camped out," he resolved to a-eate his trade. Attrac- 
tive, shrewd and accommodating, he soon won a host of cus- 
tomers. He had his established prices at the house; but on 
the square he must compete with all manner of men. He 
often sold a barrel of sugar or sack of coffee for twenty-five 
cents profit, these men never bujing in less quantities. Dur- 
ing the first }'ear, he frequentl}' sold more goods in a day 
than he had in the store. 

As quick, however, as he had made a sale to one of these 
men, he would dispatch a dray to the wholesale house, and 
have the order filled and the goods presently rolled on the 
sidewalk at his front door. After he had been in business 
some two years, INIr. Tresvant, the proprietor of the whole- 
sale house, passing down the street and noticing Greene's 
name over the door, stepped in to see him. Dumbfounded 
at the smallness of the concern, he said: " This is one of your 
branch houses, Mr. Greene.^ " " No," said Greene; "this is 
the only house I have ever done business in. " Well, replied 
Tresvant, " from the size of 3-our wholesale bills, I supposed 
you had one of the largest houses in the city." "No, sir, " 
said Greene, with a tinge of self-adulation; " the house is four- 
teen feet square — it's the man that does the business! " 

On entering business, the young merchant felt that it was 
as necessary to establish good credit as to win customers. 
He stocked his room with shelf goods, one sack of coffee, and 
two barrels of sugar. After the first few purchases, he inva- 




■*"~5' -P«4. a. J>*<toAIf A 





WILLIAM 6. GREENE. 661 

riably sent his orders to the wholesale trade without the 
cash. And then, once a week, on a certain evening at fi\-e 
o'clock, he started out to settle his bills. He alwa3-s rejoiced 
when it stormed, so he could go through the rain to his set- 
tlements. He would pass into the counting-room dripping 
with rain, shaking himself and smiling. They would remon- 
strate with him, saying they did not expect men to come at 
such times. But he felt that his credit was e\"ery thing. " I 
have nothing but m}' honor," he would say, "and I am 
determined to have as good credit as any man in this cit}-; 
and there is no way to get it but to meet my obligations, 
rain or shine." 

At the end of three years, INIr. Greene found himself worth 
four thousand dollars. He was solicited to take one of the 
mammoth rooms in the heart of the city, but he saw, in the 
young and growing State of Illinois, an opportunity for mak- 
ing money that the business of Memphis was not acquainted 
with. He had lost sight of his social and political prejudices 
far enough to believe that he could live comfortabl}- in any 
place which furnished him opportunities lor business. The 
decision made, he closed business with his usual dispatch, 
and was soon located on a farm in Mason Count}', Illinois. 

In 1853, he purchased a farm near Tallula, Menard County, 
on which he has since resided. He is as practical and orig- 
inal in his farming as in his trading schemes. He has always 
farmed on the principle that there are two ways of doing a 
thing. As he says himself, " Ever}' thing has two ends — a 
right end, and a wrong end. If you begin at the wrong 
end, every thing will go wrong. If you begin at the right 
end, the seasons, the elements, all nature become your 
helpers. Begin ever}-thing at the right time and place — get 
the right kind of a start, and pursumg it with energy and 



662 THE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

discretion, there is no difficulty in attaining large results. 
Here, now, is a hundred acres of corn. See those ears burst- 
ing out of the end of the husk, with sound grains of corn 
entirely over the end of the cob. No half-inch of dead-waste 
there, and five pounds of weight gained on every bushel. 

" Look down these rows: not a blade of grass; not a weed. 
What makes this corn, is, it gets ever}' ounce of strength 
that the soil has to yield. The Lord is alwa3-s on the side 
of the thrifty husbandman, just as He is alwa3-s on tlie side 
of the best generals and the biggest guns. Nature is man's 
friend; she will stand by him and give him a bountiful crop, 
if he will onl}' treat her right, and keep the ' chains ' oft". 
But if he turns the soil unseasonably, or plants unseasonabl}', 
or binds nature down, like a slave, in weeds and thistles, she 
gives him a small crop, because he will not unloose her, that 
she ma}' give him a large one. Every farmer can become 
rich, if he will work in harmony with nature. I court her, 
and pet her, and anticipate her wants, with all the devotion 
a young husband brings to his bride. Nature is not a slave; 
she is a friend and an all}-. 

" Few farmers know how to stimulate a tenant and get 
all out of him he is capable of doing. I bind ever}- man in 
a contract. The corn-field is to be kept in a certain condi- 
tion; in the month of August, every noxious weed is to be 
driven out. I show them where other men fail, and how I 
make my money. Then, to add to it all, I give a handsome 
premium to the man who raises the best crop. Ever}- acre 
is tended as well as if I was doing it myself. The most 
indolent hand becomes a miracle of energy, and registers an 
oath against weeds and clods as terrible and eternal as that 
of Hannibal against the enemy of Carthage. 

" Thus it is, through these agencies, I give nature an 



WILLIAM G. GREENE. 663 

opportunity to do her wonted work, and, for these thirty 
years of farming, my fields have averaged sevent3'-one 
bushels of corn to the acre. I work no harder than other 
men. The average farmer harvests thirt}' bushels to the 
acre. Now, count that forty bushels extra on eacli acre for 
a hundred acres, for thirty consecutive years, putting it at 
the fair price of thirty cents a bushel; let this surplus stand 
at interest and compound interest, and 3'ou have, in thirty 
years, one hundred thousand dollars! — enough wealth for 
any man. That accounts for that much of my fortune. Any 
farmer can accomplish that same result who will follow the 
same path that I have worked in. That hundred thousand 
dollars is the difference between good farming and common 
farming for thirty years! 

" The easiest way to do a thing is the best way, whether 
it be mauling rails or ruling the nation. That corn-field I 
sowed down this fall with rj'e, and harrowed it with sheep. 
We flung the rye on to the ground, and then turned fifty 
sheep into the field; in a few days they had drilled it in bet- 
ter than any drill could have done. It has been pronounced 
the best piece of rye in the country. I drill my wheat in 
the same way. The sharp hoofs pack the grain in until it 
defies winter, and, while other men often have their fall 
sowings frozen out, mine has never been injured by the 
cold. 

" Farming is a science, as much as chiseling a Madonna 
or navigating the ocean; but men abuse it, sa_ving it is only 
working with dirt ; and, as a result, they harvest thistles and 
mortgages. What is painting or rearing palaces but work- 
ing with earth in another form.? The same devotion 
brought to the primitive soil that is expended upon these, 
would give the farmer the means to control the artist 



66i THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

at his easel, and let him slumber in the palace of the 
architect. 

" I greath' admire those words of Horace Greeley, pro- 
phetic and true: ' Facts abundantly indicate that the actual 
position of the cultivator is not what it might and should be. 
He ought to be, by science and wisdom, the master of the 
elements; }-et is, through ignorance and imperfection, their 
slave. Instead of being, as in manufactures, or navigation, 
the director and controller of the blind forces of nature to 
his own use and ' profit, the farmer allows them to escape 
him in uselessness or mischief, and feebly and insufficiently 
supplies their place by over-taxing his own sinews. Hence,, 
weariness, disgust, and meager recompense; hence the 
accomplished or longed-for escape of countless thousands 
from the paltry drudgery of the hoe and spade to the larger 
hopes and more intellectual sphere of effort elsewhere 
aftbrded. 

" ' Within the sphere of agriculture lie yet enfolded the 
germs of conquests, far mightier and nobler than those of 
any Caesar or Napoleon. These petty, cramped inclosures, 
these deforming, dwarfing fences, which render the land- 
scape so insipid and characterless, shall yet be swept away 
by the genius of improvement. Then the brook shall no 
more brawl idly down the declivity, while the laborer delves 
wearily, yet ineffectually, by its side, and will no more 
stoop doggedly to burdens which the free breezes would 
gladly bear to their appointed destination. We stand but 
on the threshold of the world of science made practical, and 
our vision rests on and is bounded by its application to man- 
ufactures alone. The farmer of the coming age — master 
and manager of steam, rather than tyrant of enslaved, toil- 
worn, hungry beasts — shall not need painfully to hea^•e the 



WILLIAM G. GREENE. 665 

ponderous rock from its base, but will, rather, by some 
chemical solvent, pulverize it to fertile dust vi'here it lies. 
To his informed, observant mind, the changes of tempera- 
ture, the succession of calm and storm, shall bring no 
surprise, no disaster, being unerringly foreseen and profited 
by, like the rotation of the seasons. * * * There is no 
practical limit to the powers at all times presenting them- 
selves to do the bidding of man, had he but the talent and 
the genius to adapt and apply them. Nature wills that the 
plow, the scj'the, the axe, the harvest-wain, shall move for- 
ward on their proper errands, as irresistibly, inexpensivel}' 
as the saw, the throstle, the shuttle, and with equally bene- 
ficent results. Half a century will suffice, in my judgment, 
to bring forward agriculture to the point inanufacture has 
now reached.' 

" The farmer is the chief corner-stone of our commerce. 
If he does his work indifferently, the whole superstructure 
is to that extent impaired. I hail fairs, and agricultural 
colleges, and an agricultural congress, as God-sends to our 
nation. We inust be lifted out of this ignorant, slip-shod 
farming, that expects the ground to bring forth harvests 
with half-cultivation drudgingly given. If I sweat out a 
dollar, I have rendered its full equivalent, and more; for 
that much of my vital force is gone, and I am no better than 
the machine that performs that many ' horse-power ' work. 
But if I bring my intelligence into action, and, by its assist- 
ance, produce the work of three such machines, then have I 
a profit o\'er saw-mills and beasts of bvirden. That profit is 
the legitimate capital of my brain. Nature intends for man 
to take that surplus cash and travel, buy books, and educate, 
and purchase and admire, the useful and the beautiful. Edu- 
cate the farmers and artisans; teach them that they are 



666 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

men; show them how to use their brain in conjunction with 
their muscle; let them know the meaning of thrift, and 
study the wealth in econom}'. If all our laboring classes 
would thus act, every man could soon have a home, a com- 
petence for his old age, and would lead a life serene, intelli- 
gent, and happy." 

Such is the terse and vivid way in which Mr. Greene 
speaks of a farmer's life. This class of men never leave 
anything to chance. The}' enter into the meditations of a 
philosopher over ever}' crop to be planted. The}' take the 
papers, and keep posted on the markets, and know the num- 
ber of bushels of each kind of grain raised on the globe each 
season. Keeping pace with the supply, and knowing the 
demand, they always prepare themselves to feed the great- 
est need. 

Another maxim of the good business man is to make some 
money every year. He who acts on this principle, is a sure 
and safe business man. He that proposes to " dri\'e business 
for all it is worth," and make a fortune in ten years, may 
secure some enormous returns, but he is about as certain to 
lose them. As some men die just at the right time to gi\'e 
their names to fame, so, if these men would leave a fortune, 
they must die just after a big trade. Senator Yates was 
always impatient of Greene's slow way of making money, 
and would continually picture to him John T. Alexander, 
the great cattle shipper, as the model business man, and was 
grieved that Greene would not make the mammoth ventures 
of Alexander. 

One day Yates came to Greene, and showed him a state- 
ment of Alexander's business for the past year. He had 
cleared two hundred and ninety-tive thousand dollars. 
" Now," said Yates, "you drone around and make about so 



WILLIAM O. GREENE. 067 

much ever}- year, and John pitches out and makes a fortune 
in one year." " I know he is outstripping me now," Greene 
quietly replied, " but he is sailing his craft over a dangerous 
sea. He will bankrupt inside of ten years, as sure as fate. 
But my fortune is solid as Gibraltar. No possible reverse 
can come that will break me. In selling railroad stock, or 
a hundred head of cattle, or a horse, I make something in 
every transaction. I have the reins over my business, and 
understand it to the minutest detail; while John is an ach'en- 
turer, knowing reall}' but little about his business, and is 
wildly prospecting for a gold mine somewhere.'''' The pre- 
diction was fulfilled. In less than ten years Alexander was 
a bankrupt, and did not know his indebtedness by two hun- 
dred thousand dollars. 

Greene seldom invested a dollar in any enterprise that lost 
him money. He entertains a trade involving a hundred dollars 
with the same patient study and sagacity that he does one in- 
vohing a hundred thousand. He considers a result, whether 
it be ten dollars, or ten thousand dollars' profit, of equal 
importance. He strives, not for so many dollars, but for the 
successful issue of a trade. And such a result he deems no 
mean achie\'ement. The words of Frederick the Great con- 
cerning his father, ma}' be applied to Mr. Greene: " He had 
an industrious spirit in a robust body, with, perhaps, more 
capacity for minute details than any man that ever lived; 
and if he occupied himself with little things, it was that great 
results might be the consequence." 

Some men can make money at certain times. To Greene 
all times are alike good for a crop of profits. If crops are 
good, commerce is active, and every one is full of money, 
he makes, with others. If crops are poor, improvements 
come to a stop, every man is afraid to invest, and dealers 



668 TEE GENIUS OP INDUSTRY. 

being pushed to the wall, he makes his usual amount. He 
is never alarmed at the times, nor disconcerted in his plans. 
His cool, self-possessed, far-reaching sagacity never forsakes 
him. He trims his sails for every condition of afiairs, and 
out of calm or whirlvt'ind sails awa}' with a profit. 

He likes to see a disruption of all business relations occa- 
sionall}', because it exhibits the real metal of the business 
men. When the ways of commerce have become stereo- 
typed, and everything runs in its rut, man}' men get rich by 
following the routine that the real men of business have 
established; now, when all this is interrupted and the old 
paths are plowed up, and every man is in the " woods," is 
the time the original self-reliant men manifest their worth. 

Mr. Greene early foresaw the necessit}' of internal im- 
provement, and has given all the weight of his influence in 
that direction. However, except in cases of extreme neces- 
sity, he has opposed government subsidies. He was active 
in the presidency of the Jacksonville Division of the Chi- 
cago and Alton Railroad. The energy and sagacity he 
brought to his duties were effectual in placing the road on a 
firmer basis than it had ever known before. His presidency 
of the Springfield and Nortlivvestern Railroad covered the 
most flourishing period of that road's existence. 

Men of keen business insight and originality of methods 
are quite apt to displa}' their qualities under all circumstan- 
ces. During Mr. Greene's presidency' of the Tonica and 
Petersburg Railroad, he went, in company with Richard 
Yates to New York, to see after their bonds. On the road, 
Yates, who was then only a prominent lawyer, told Greene 
confidentially that he proposed to be Governor of Illinois 
some day, and solicited his support, which was promised. 
In New York, as both were Universalists, they went to 



WILLIAM O. GREENE. 669 

hear Dr. Chapin, but were unable to find a seat. The next 
Sunday evening Greene reconnoitered in the vestibule and 
saw a pale, frail, nervous little usher. He hastened over to 
the hotel and brought Yates to the church, telling him that 
he had a seat engaged. They entered the crowded vesti- 
bule, and pushed their way to the front. A great athletic 
usher made his appearance to take in some parties. Yates, 
from the top of his six feet looked down on the plucky little 
financier. But he stood meelch', saying, in his own mind, 
"That's not my man." 

The pale and delicate usher appeared. The crowd 
pressed up as usual, each one seeming to say — "Take me." 
Greene stepped out in front, waving the crowd back with 
outstretched arms, and saying: " Ladies and gentlemen, give 
the Governor of Illinois an opportunity to hear Dr. Chapin 
— modesty forbids that I should say who / am." The crowd 
swayed back. The little usher salaamed to his knees. Then, 
plucking Yates by one arm and Greene by the other, he led 
them down the aisle, brought two camp-chairs and seated 
his distinguished guests at the foot of the pulpit. 

Mr. Greene has never divided his forces, but has given 
his energies supremely to business. Men who do a little at 
everything, do not usually do much at anything. So, when 
Greene had decided on his life course, he threw overboard 
the solicitations of Lincoln and Yates, and set himself to 
work at his chosen calling. He, howe\'er, played a very 
important part, privately, in one political campaign. That 
was not as a politician, but as a friend. In 1859, the dreams 
of Richard Yates stood on the threshold of fulfillment. He 
was an aspirant for the Go\'ernorship of Illinois, but Leonard 
Swett seemingly stood an equal chance for the nomination. 
The canvass prior to the convention was carried on with 



670 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

great warmth, and Yates was fearful of the result. Lincoln 
had established himself at Springfield, and, in his recent de- 
bates with Douglas, had earned a national reputation. 

As the convention day drew near, Yates felt that he must 
make a friend of Lincoln, and decided that their old com- 
panion, Greene, was able to manipulate the matter to the 
satisfaction of both. Accordingly Yates came to see Greene, 
and told him he was certain of the nomination, provided 
Lincoln could be induced to "lean " to his side; moreover, 
that Lincoln stood a favorable chance for the Republican 
nomination for President; and he asked Greene to interest 
Lincoln in his favor in the race for Governor. In return, 
Yates would use his influence to bring Lincoln into promin- 
ence as a candidate for the Presidency in i860. 

Mr. Greene assented to the arrangement. The)^ rode 
over to Springfield, and once more the three, who had made 
acquaintance at Salem a quarter of a centur}' belore, stood 
together Their circumstances had greatly changed since that 
first meeting. One had become an active member of Con- 
gress, and now with high hopes was looking forward to the 
gubernatorial chair. His college friend, aided only by his 
energy and shrewdness, had hewn his wa}' through obstac- 
les before which others would have shrunk, and raised him- 
self from an obscure j-outh to a wealthy and prominent 
citizen of the state. The third was rapidly growing into 
fame as a statesman. Little did any of them think what 
tremendous issues were gathering around the path of one of 
that trio. 

Greene and Lincoln retired to the counsel room of the 
office. There Greene unfolded to Lincoln the desire of Yates, 
for his support. There had been a coolness between the two 
latter for some years, and Lincoln was glad of an opportunity 



WILLIAM O. GHEEX-E. 671 

to lay the Christian's coals of fire on the head of Yates. 
Greene next opened the presidential matter. He showed 
Lincoln the feasibility of his aspirations, and revealed the 
plan of introducing him to the east: Yates would write Con- 
gressman George Briggs a letter, and have him work np a 
call from the New York Central Committee for Lincoln to 
deliver an address on the political condition of the countr}' 
at the Cooper Union. " In lact, Abe," continued Greene, 
"Dick considei's your destiny and his linked together, and 
that letter is now on its wa}' to New York." Of course 
Abe would '' lean " a little for Dick. Yates was nominated 
and elected. Lincoln was invited to New York, and in the 
following May received the Presidential nomination. 

The elements of Mr. Greene's success are readily traced 
in his qualities. He is remarkable for the strength and s\m- 
metry of his character. His brain is well balanced, and his 
great mental force, keen perception, and quick intuitions are 
compensated by a genial temperament, kindly nature, and 
other graces of character which relieve these qualities from 
what might otherwise assume the form of severity, or even 
angularit}', and make him a courtly gentleman. Cautious, 
systematic, and reflective in his business operations, he is yet 
daring, determined, and even combative, where his intellect 
has indicated the proper course for him to follow; and, with 
these nobler qualities, he possesses, to a remarkable degree, 
that possibl}' commonplace, but certainly useful, chai-acteris- 
tic, practical common sense. 

To natural shrewdness he adds habits of observation that 
make his judgment, in matters of business, almost unerring. 
Combine with this, promptness to seize upon the salient points 
of a transaction, and decision enough to assume at once the 
responsibility of a contract, and we have the elements of the 



672 THE GENIUS OF INDUSTRY. 

keen, successful business man. In connection with a nice per- 
ception and understanding of the relations of details, his broad 
and vital grasp of mainmoth interests has been the impelling 
power by which Mr. Greene has succeeded in manipulating 
operations which, to many men, would have been reckless 
adventures, crowned with disaster. 

Finall}', if the prosperity of William G. Greene has been 
beyond that of most men, it is because he has thought more, 
planned better, and brought to the execution of his designs 
energy and perseverance that seldom fail in the accomplish- 
ment of their object. Born to the necessities of labor, the 
early circumstances of his life offered no promise of golden 
success. That was something almost foreign to the rude 
time and community in which he grew to manhood. Had 
his life been cast amid abundant opportunities for enterprise, 
he would doubtless ha^"e reaped larger gains. As it was, 
the rough, backwoods life, the hardships of whose training 
have brought upon the stage so much of sterling worth while 
it in some sense held talent in check, yet was not without its 
influence in cultivating shrewdness, energ}', self-reliance, and 
decision; qualities which always, and everywhere, must be 
relied upon to produce success. Fortune is a fickle goddess. 
She commonl}- frowns before she smiles. Those who woo 
her successfuU}' must first withstand her buftetings, and in 
the school of a thousand emergencies and difficulties, gain 
the bravery and tact which at last carry the day. It was 
by such a process that William G. Greene climbed from pov- 
erty to position and six hundred thousand dollars. 




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